Be All My Sins Remembered
by Thefirstandlast
Summary: He was an agent of change, a force of destruction. He left death and chaos in his wake, and the fallout from their last dance with the devil would bring the Sixteenth Precinct to its knees.
1. Storm Rising

A very alternate version of Lewis's return. I don't own anything, and thank goodness for that.

Notes: Hmm, well my last attempt at notes seemed to give everyone some skewed expectations, so here's try number two. This is not a happy story. Bear that in mind before you get into it. Also, despite initial appearances, it's much more of an Elliot story than an Olivia story. And a pre-apology to Cassidy fans, who may want to turn back now. Sorry. The idea just wouldn't go away.

Setting notes: This is arguably AU but takes place around 15x18 and doesn't directly contradict any events up to then, except all that retirement nonsense never happened. They still have roles to play. D:

* * *

1\. Storm Rising

Olivia woke abruptly at five AM, her bedroom dark but for the faint blue light of early dawn and the soft glow of yellow from the cracks in the doorway. The other side of the bed was empty as usual, but the covers were rumpled and the sheets still warm. The clatter of cups and dishes sounded faintly through the walls.

Quashing the urge to go back to sleep, she rolled over and climbed out of bed, grabbing her bathrobe as she shivered in the morning chill. Cassidy was finishing up his coffee as she entered, and he smiled at her as she squinted in the brightness of the kitchen.

"Morning," she yawned.

"Hey. Can I make you anything?"

"No. You're already done." She suppressed another yawn. "Seems like you get up earlier every day.

"Gotta get to work."

She smiled a little. "Like always. Honestly, I wouldn't have expected IAB to be this much work. Didn't know the NYPD was _quite_ so corrupt these days."

"Yeah, well, you know Tucker. Besides, if I don't do a good job here, they're never going to let me transfer. This is my last chance, Liv."

She sighed. "I know. You've told me."

She watched him hunt for his wallet and put on his coat, then caught his hand as he turned to leave.

"Hey. If you're free this weekend, maybe we can do something together. I feel like I see you less now that we've moved in than I did before."

"I'm sorry. I'm just -"

"Busy. I know. Just think about it."

He looked at her for a long time, an odd look on his face. Something wistful, sad. She waited for the peculiar softening of the eyes he had whenever he watched her. But it didn't come.

"I'll try my best."

"Have a good day." She kissed him gently on the lips, but something felt off, his body stiffer against hers than usual. She frowned a little. "Something wrong?"

"No. Just - tired."

"Okay." She didn't push, watching him leave before pouring her own coffee. After all, their relationship was built on not pushing. She didn't ask about his past and he didn't ask about hers, as though the thirteen years that spanned between their time together had been wisps of mist in the wind. They didn't talk about Lewis or Carissa -

_\- (or Elliot) -_

\- or any of the innumerable delicate subjects that swirled like grains of sand in water between them. They'd slipped easily into each others' lives without bending or shifting, filling some of the empty spaces and leaving others wide open. But that was fine, that was okay. It was better than being alone.

She skipped breakfast and went to work.

SVU was even more exhausting than usual nowadays. Cragen and Munch were edging up on retirement, which would leave her as the ranking officer. Cragen was trying to prepare her to take over when he left, but it was slow work, interspersed with the dread of the loss of two more figures of stability in her life.

Most of the time, she didn't mind, though. It was better to work. Coming home had always been an ordeal after Lewis. Opening the door to darkness and silence made her heart pound, her scars ache. It had been better when Brian was there, the blaring of football on the television reassuring her nothing sinister awaited her. But then he'd begun working even later than her, and the silence had returned. Her offer to Nick to sleep on her couch after his home had been vandalized had been half compassion, half self-interest. It was easier to come home with someone else around, someone to laugh or argue with, a distraction to get her across the threshold, backup in case something went wrong. But that had been temporary too. Maybe it had always been her fate to walk into the darkness alone.

She flipped on the lights and set down her purse. She was hanging up her coat when the faintest of noises came from the bedroom, like the shifting of cloth, or the whisper of wind. Her adrenaline spiked, heartbeat racing, one hand going to the gun at her hip. There had been a hundred false alarms since her four days in hell, but if Lewis had taught her one thing, it was that paranoia was better than carelessness, that it was better to assume danger than safety.

Her eyes swept the living room, searching the shadows and dim corners before heading to the bedroom, gun drawn. The room was dark, lit only by the lamplight filtering in from the living room. So when she saw William Lewis sitting casually on the end of her bed, she blinked and froze for the barest moment, too surprised for even fear.

He turned his head to smile at her, his teeth gleaming white in the darkness, the fading circular scar around his eye standing out starkly in the shadows. He made no move towards her, but only watched her, amused interest apparent in his features.

"Hi sweetheart," he said, his voice a low purr. "Did you miss me?"

She lifted her gun slightly to aim it at his head, and she found to her relief that her hands were steady. "How the hell did you manage to get out of prison?"

"You think walls were all you needed to keep me away? You know better. And I don't think the technical details are what you really want right now."

"You're right." Her voice was flat. "You shouldn't have come here. Put your hands up."

Lewis merely cocked his head at her, his smile still in place.

"Hands in the air. I mean it."

"Are you really going to shoot an unarmed man, Olivia? You've fallen pretty far since we first met."

Her lips curled back in a snarl. "You really think I won't? After all you've done, you really think anyone's going to question me if I blow your brains out all over my bedroom? The only reason I'm giving you a chance to walk out of here is that I don't want to pay the cleaners to get your blood out of the rugs. But I'm starting to think it's probably worth it. So you better decide fast."

He didn't move.

"One."

"You really ought to work on those anger issues, Olivia. Have you tried therapy?"

"Two."

His confidence was unnerving.

"Three."

Something hard and cold pressed against the back of her head, and she froze.

"Drop the gun, Liv."

The voice was familiar. She closed her eyes for a moment, panic nearly bubbling over. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. She'd had this dream a hundred times already, even talked it over with Lindstrom. All she had to do was wake up and it would be over, and she'd look to the other side of the bed and feel irrationally guilty.

She opened her eyes and turned slightly, still keeping her gun on Lewis. Cassidy still stood behind her, his own weapon unwavering.

"I said, drop the gun."

She was bewildered. The world felt surreal, distant. "Bri - Brian, what are you doing? What's going on?"

"Put your gun down, Olivia. Let's talk."

"I can't do that, Brian. Tell me what's going on."

He pressed the gun to her head just a little harder. "I'm sorry. You don't have a choice."

"And if I drop my gun," she whispered, "what happens after that?"

Cassidy didn't answer, unable to meet her eyes. But Lewis grinned slightly, shifting on her bed.

It was hard to think with the steel barrel digging into her scalp, but she tried to consider her options with some level of detachment. Finally, she shook her head.

"No," she said, and her voice cracked humiliatingly. "I can't do this again. I won't. Shoot me if you want. That's a department-issue weapon, Cassidy. How long do you think it'll take them to figure out what happened?"

Lewis laughed. "Really? What happened to the woman who fought so hard to stay alive eight months ago? You begged me to live, remember? You told me with tears in your eyes that you'd do _anything_. But you wanna die now, at the hands of your boyfriend, no less? You're no fun anymore. It was barely worth coming by."

She gritted her teeth, gripping the handle of the gun a little tighter, aiming it between his eyes. "If I die now, I'll take you with me. I promise you that."

"Liv." Cassidy's quiet voice cut through the air. "Listen to me. You can pull the trigger, and all our lives are going to end right here. But put down the gun and you still have a shot. It's better than nothing." His voice wavered a little. "Trust me. I know. And this isn't what you think."

She hesitated, glancing back, her grip slackening for just a moment.

It was all the opening Lewis needed. He lunged forward, knocking her to the ground with bruising force, the gun flying out of her hands as air whooshed out of her lungs. She took a breath to scream, but Lewis flipped her over, slamming her down hard enough that her chin hit the ground.

He lowered his head to whisper in her ear. "Actually, it's exactly what you think."

She tried to scream again, but Cassidy covered her mouth as Lewis wrenched her arms behind her back, his fingers tracing the tiny ridged scars on her wrists from their last encounter. She shuddered as her hands were once again locked behind her back, the memories of last time nearly overwhelming her, and almost against her will, she looked at Cassidy pleadingly.

He looked away, but still spoke.

"If I let go, do you promise to be quiet? I don't want to gag you, but I will if I have to."

She managed to nod against his palm. When he let go, she drew a shuddering breath and started to speak, surprised by the calmness in her own voice.

"Cassidy - Brian - listen to me. I know - _I know_ you wouldn't do this. Not without a good reason. Let me go, and we can figure things out, just like you said. It doesn't have to be this way."

"I can't." There was a deadness to his voice, and she realized she'd heard it this morning but hadn't paid it heed. "I wish I could but I can't. Things have gone too far."

"Why are you doing this?" she said, shoving down the hysteria that bubbled at the edge of her throat. "Tell me that, at least. You owe me that much."

"I can't," he repeated, still not meeting her eyes. "And I don't think it would matter, anyway."

Suddenly, Lewis yanked her head back by her hair, and she bit back a cry of fear and pain.

"I think you're worrying about the wrong person, sweetheart," he said, his breath hot against her neck. "How exactly you managed to screw things up this badly is about to be the least of your worries."

When Lewis wrenched her to her knees, she screamed, half on instinct, half in defiance. They all knew that a bullet to the head would be cleaner than what was coming next. But Cassidy didn't shoot. He struck her across the face with his gun instead.

She'd been hit enough times at this point in her life to recognize the hesitation in his blow, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt, opening a gash above her cheekbone and making stars dance past her eyes. Somewhere through the pain she could feel a cloth being shoved roughly into her mouth, far enough that she gagged, and then another being tied behind her head. Lewis wasn't prepared this time, she managed to think. He hadn't brought supplies or a real plan, and maybe that meant something but she couldn't think what.

Cassidy was speaking again. "Please, Liv. Don't make this harder than it is."

As if she would listen. She twisted in their grips and kicked out, managing to land a solid blow on Cassidy. He staggered back slightly, and she had the barest of moments to feel a flash of bitter triumph before a heavy blow to the back of the head sent her spiraling down into darkness.


	2. The Darkness Drops

I appreciated the all the positive responses to the first chapter, since I was expecting vastly more hatred. It does make me worried that people aren't taking my warning at the beginning seriously though. And I know angst is the cornerstone of the SVU fandom, but this story is not happy even by those standards (as far as I know, anyway. I haven't read everything).

And with that said, this is not a nice chapter.

* * *

2\. The Darkness Drops

Lewis drove for hours this time, far out if the city, up north into the mountains. Snow still coated the ground, footprints and tire tracks dotting the ground. They grew fewer in number as he continued onward.

He finally decided on a smaller, worn down cabin, the frame of the door giving way after a few hard shoves. The inside walls were lined with photographs and small game trophies - a hunting cabin. That was good. He hadn't had time to get supplies this time, but for sheer intimidation factor, it was hard to beat hunting equipment.

He went back to the car. He opened the trunk and Olivia stared up at him, stark terror in her eyes. But her legs were unbound, and she kicked out at him as fiercely as she could manage. He caught her leg before she hit him, dragging her out of the trunk. She hit the ground hard with a muffled cry of pain.

He bent over her gently, almost tenderly, and she shied away, shivering with a combination of fear and cold. Lewis smiled. He wanted to take her then, to pin her down on the freezing gravel and watch the light die from her eyes, but that would be foolish, a careless mistake when he'd made too many already. Instead, he jerked her to her feet, then pushed her towards the cabin door.

It was harder to move her this time. She fought him every step of the way, bucking and twisting against him, almost succeeding in yanking herself out of his grip several times for all her movements were still uncoordinated. Perhaps it was because he hadn't bothered drugging her. More likely though, she simply better understood her position this time. There would be no cooperation or negotiation, no mercy asked or given. She'd tried it all before and none of it had helped in the slightest. So she fought, struggling with increasingly desperate strength.

Pathetic, really.

They finally reached the entrance to the cabin, and he pushed her through, slamming the door behind him. Then he threw her to the ground, hitting her until he felt a rib splinter beneath his fists. She cried out and finally stilled, staring up at him with tears in her eyes.

Even if this ended now, his victory over her would be absolute. Having awoken from a nightmare only to find she was still inside, there would be no force on earth that could convince her that she was truly safe, no amount of medication that would allow her to ever again sleep peacefully through the night. Every moment, every action for the rest of her life would be tainted by him. The thought was satisfying in its own right. But this way was more fun.

"I'm going to take the gag out now," he told her gently. "You can scream if you want. No one can hear you anymore."

She didn't scream. Her eyes darted past him, sweeping the dusty cabin uncertainly, her gaze slightly unfocused, still dazed.

"Wh-" she began, then blinked dizzily, looking around the room again.

He thought he understood her confusion. She was wondering if it had really been her boyfriend holding a gun to her head, or if it had just been a dream, some nightmare induced by the blow to the head. Deep down, she probably knew the answer. But she couldn't quite bring herself to believe it, even now. Denial was the strongest of human emotions. When the truth was terrible enough, it was human nature to glance hesitantly, as if looking at the sun, before looking away.

If she didn't ask, he wouldn't tell her. He didn't want her to be distracted right now.

He knelt over her, straddling her hips, reaching for the top button of her blouse. She tried to flinch away and then cried out as the movement hurt her ribs. Smiling, he slapped her hard, reopening the wound on her cheek.

"Don't do that," he said calmly. "You know it's not going to help."

Wincing, she took a shallow breath, then finally looked him in the eye.

"You shouldn't have come back," she whispered. "You could have run - you could have been halfway to Canada by now and none of us would have ever been able to find you. But you had to come back for me. Do you think you're really going to get away this time?"

He pretended to consider it. "Yeah, actually, I think I am. I don't know if you noticed, sweetheart, but you guys have thrown about a dozen charges at me, yet here we are."

"You just spent the last eight months rotting in a jail cell," she said, her voice flat. "What do you think is going to happen this time?"

He shook his head, amused, trailing his fingers down to the second button. "It's too bad you won't live to find out, either way."

She finally looked away, and he could feel her trembling beneath him like an injured bird. Perhaps she'd been afraid last time, but her disbelief had been stronger, her bravado less feigned. She'd never truly believed that she could lose, that this could really be happening to her. It had taken days for him to begin to convince her otherwise. This time, she knew better.

"Scared, Olivia?" he asked softly, and jerked her shirt the rest of the way open, buttons popping off and clattering onto the ground.

She flinched again and closed her eyes. "Go to hell," she said between gritted teeth, her voice shaking.

He laughed. "You first," he said, reaching for her belt.

* * *

When she passed out for the third time, Lewis finally dropped his knife and stepped away, leaning against the wall and lighting a cigarette. The smoke in his lungs filled him with a euphoric sense of relief, and he let out his breath slowly, never taking his eyes from Olivia. In some ways, prison had been good for him, he mused. He'd picked up too many bad habits over the years, and they'd been dragging him down, making him weak. He'd gotten clean over the past few months, using the long stretches of emptiness to plan his escape and to hone himself, to single mindedly purge himself of every addiction.

All but two.

He dropped the cigarette on the floor when he was done, grinding it beneath his heel. Then he walked to Olivia again, bending down, stroking her cheek. Even unconscious, she still flinched away. He'd already taught her on a fundamental level that touch meant pain. But it never hurt to reinforce the lesson. He drew back his foot and kicked her hard.

She slid across the floor as her eyes snapped open, and she let out a strangled cry of pain. He stood over her, savoring the moment, smiling at her as she gasped on the floor.

"Now's not the time to rest, Olivia," he said, putting a caress in the name that made her shiver. "We have so much left to do."

Painfully, she rolled over, flinching a little with every movement, trying to struggle upright, for what purpose he couldn't guess. It was a vain endeavor, for all he'd freed her hands hours ago - she wasn't winning any fights now. He waited until she was almost to her knees before he grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her back down, her head hitting the floor, her breath squeaking out of her lungs. She went limp, staying down even when he let her go. Her fight was almost gone now. He could always tell. It hadn't been easy, every scream, every cry extracted through hours of pain and focus. But he thought they were reaching the end now, the strain in her iron control more apparent with each passing minute. Everyone broke by the end.

He straddled her again, tracing a hand along her bare stomach, her skin patterned with old scars and new wounds. She clenched her jaw, and Lewis could almost hear the steel doors slamming behind her eyes as she prepared to endure, to put on a stoic face once more. He chuckled, gently kissing each burn on her chest as she shuddered.

"You're still beautiful, you know," he whispered. "Did you doubt it? Did you ever let anyone see these scars but me? When you slept with your boyfriend - to prove to yourself that you still could - did you keep the lights off, focus on keeping my face out of your mind?"

A small noise of pain and misery escaped her throat, and Lewis grinned, pleased at another victory. He almost didn't notice that she had gotten hold of the discarded knife until she brought it up, jabbing it at his throat.

She was fast but he was faster. He caught her hand at the last moment, the knife barely grazing his skin. A single red droplet swelled until it ran down his neck, splashing on the ground. He stared at it, shaking his head.

"You don't learn, do you?" he said softly, almost in wonder. "You just don't stop."

He pinned her arm to the ground, twisting her wrist until he felt something give way. She dropped the knife with a cry, and he grabbed it, standing abruptly.

"You just - don't - know - when you've - lost." Each word was punctuated by a vicious kick to the side and by the end she was crying, curled up into as tight of a ball as she could manage, arms shielding her head.

All at once, he was calm again. He knelt over her, shoving her onto her stomach as she gasped painfully, his fingers stroking her hair.

"Do you know why I use fire?" he asked, after a few moments. "It's about control. It's not how people usually think of fire. But if you have patience, you can use it, you can tame it." He bent down to whisper in her ear. "I use it right, and no one ever dies before I'm ready."

He sat back on his haunches, enjoying the feeling of her trembling against his skin. This was the best part, really. The _anticipation_.

"Knives, on the other hand, they're messy." He flicked the one in his hand disdainfully. "They're used by every thug who can't get their hands on a gun. It's too easy to make mistakes."

He traced his fingers gently down the soft skin of her back, then followed it up with the knife, pressing just hard enough to break the skin. Small dots of blood beaded out in a lazy line as he watched, fascinated. She tensed beneath him but didn't scream. The only noise in the cabin was the sound of her ragged breathing.

He grinned at her brightly. "But sometimes we just have to make do."

He brought the knife down again, pushing deep into the muscles below her shoulder as she let out a pained gasp. He pulled it out with a quick motion, watching as the blood welled up. It had been worth the wait, he thought, probing and tearing at the wound with callused fingers, and the sensation of blood and warm flesh made him shiver with pleasure. Seeing her again had been very much worth the wait. Finally she cried out, the noise torn between clenched teeth. Her eyelids fluttered as she wavered on the edge of unconsciousness, a thin sheen of sweat standing out on her brow.

Satisfied, he flipped her around to face him, pressing her bloodied back into the floorboards.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" he said softly.

She said nothing, her eyes locked on his, one fist clenched, her breathing carefully controlled.

"Didn't even faze you, huh?" He ran the knife along her breastbone, not quite hard enough to draw blood. "We can keep going, if you want."

"No." The word seemed almost involuntary, tumbling out against her will, slipping through another crack in her stony facade.

"No? You don't want to play anymore? But I still haven't gotten an answer to my question."

"It hurts," she said, her voice expressionless, her eyes staring dully past him at the ceiling.

"I thought so. Now here's the real question. Are you ready for this to stop?"

Her shoulders shook, and she made a strange sound, one that came from deep within her chest. For a moment, he thought they were death throes, that he had finally pushed too far. But then he realized, with a rising sense of incredulity, that she was laughing, looking up at him with some hint of the amused disdain he'd seen the first time she'd interrogated him.

"You want me to beg you," she rasped. "You want me to say that you won. But I won't. Not this time. You're pathetic. You're nothing. You can kill me here and you'll still be nothing. So do what you're gonna do. I know nothing I say is going to change what happens. I won't give you the satisfaction."

For a moment, his control slipped, his face twisting into a mask of flat fury, his fists clenching around her forearms so hard that he felt the bones creak against each other.

Then, abruptly, he grinned again, a smile filled with such sweetness and charm that he felt Olivia shudder beneath him, her eyes widening a little with renewed fear.

"It's impressive, sweetheart, that you can think that after all this time. But really, we've only just started. We have as long as we need to change your mind."

His hand slipped lower and she jolted beneath him, bucking her hips once before going still, closing her eyes and turning her head, her eyelashes glittering with suppressed tears. She didn't fight him. She was finally starting to learn, perhaps.

"Everyone loses eventually, Olivia," he whispered, his lips a hair's breadth from her skin. "You, me, everyone. You roll the dice until your number comes up, and then it's over. It's nothing to be afraid of. All you can do is make sure you go out with a bang."

He shifted again, readying himself, then looked down, smiling gently. "You can scream, if you want," he added.

She did.


	3. Ashes to Ashes

So, it might be helpful to clear up some things, as a lot of people seem to be misinterpreting my warning about this not being a happy story. I wasn't trying to imply that this story was going to be particularly graphic, because it's not (it's rated T, after all). I kind of meant it in the sense of events don't turn out well, in hopes that fewer people will justifiably yell at me for this, and indeed future chapters.

As for plot related questions, all will be explained. Eventually.

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3\. Ashes to Ashes

Elliot Stabler came home in the early afternoon to a silent house. He hung his coat and headed towards the kitchen, nearly stepping on scattered pieces of a half-completed puzzle. Puzzles and six year olds rarely mixed, but hobbies died hard sometimes, and Kathy still spent most evenings after Eli had gone to bed sitting at the living room table, illuminated by the lamplight, patiently sorting colored pieces into piles.

She was always gone when he came home from work, usually grocery shopping or spending time with one of the women in her boundless social circle. Elliot didn't mind. Their relationship had solidified into something decent of late. Sometimes he and Kathy talked and joked like they used to, but most of the time they stayed out of each others' way, finding an equilibrium between their time together and their time apart.

Since he'd left SVU, he'd worked the early morning shift managing a warehouse, a job he'd gotten through an old buddy from the marines. It was chaotic and hectic, but ultimately not too difficult, and not the sort of thing that allowed much time for introspection. Just the way he preferred. His days had settled into the kind of routine that Kathy would have killed for ten years ago, work in the early morning, pick up Eli up after school, dinner at 7, quiet evenings with no talk of death or danger or assaults.

Things were okay. Fine, in fact. Sometimes he woke up in the morning without remembering he was a murderer.

He turned on the television as he passed, mostly to chase away the silence, then headed into the kitchen for a late lunch. He made a sandwich, the clatter of plates on the table still loud over the drone of diet commercials. He was halfway through pouring out a glass of water when he stopped and glanced up, some part of his unconscious tingling with foreboding.

A gray-haired news anchor stared back at him from the television screen, his face set in a practiced expression of solemnity.

" - from the NYPD have confirmed that the body discovered this morning was that of Sergeant Olivia Benson, a twenty year veteran of the police force. Official -"

The glass slipped through numb fingers, smashing on the ground. Elliot barely noticed. Somewhere far away, a man was screaming.

* * *

He was two blocks from the station house before he came to his senses, jolted into awareness as his car was cut off by a news van, honking furiously as it wove past him. He blinked as though waking from a dream, his fists clenched around the steering wheel so tightly that the joints creaked painfully when he tried to let go.

He got control of himself and managed to pull over, shifting into park in front of a fire hydrant as pedestrians scowled and stared. He ignored them, taking deep calming breaths, wondering what in the hell he was doing. He'd deliberately avoided this area since he'd quit his job, and it had been surprisingly easy too. But the muscle memory hadn't faded, his hands still shifting at the steering wheel at the correct times without any conscious thought. But it didn't change the fact that he had no place there anymore, probably wouldn't even be allowed in, given the encroaching media shit storm. And if he did, what was he even planning to do? What purpose could this possibly serve, days or years too late to make a difference?

Clenching the steering wheel again, he closed his eyes, trying to summon up some semblance of calm, some memory of a time of fewer second guesses, a time where Olivia had walked a half step behind him, her eyes watchful. No, the precinct was the wrong place to go. There was nothing left for him there. He took a breath and pulled away from the curb. Two side streets and an illegal U-turn later, he was speeding towards the morgue instead.

The building hadn't changed since he'd last seen it, rising up gray against the blue sky. No sign of reporters or cameras yet. They were probably focused on the press conference at the precinct. Elliot opened the door and walked inside.

The secretary at the desk looked at him warily. "Can I help you?"

He cleared his throat nervously. "I'd like to speak to Dr. Warner, please? Tell her it's Elliot Stabler."

She gave a long-suffering sigh and picking up the phone and speaking disinterestedly for a moment. Then she looked at him.

"She'll be out in a moment."

"Thanks."

Warner appeared after only a few minutes, still in her dark blue scrubs, and she looked at him, her face lined with grief.

"Elliot." She took a breath to steady herself. "I can't believe this is happening. When they brought her in this morning - "

"I need to see her."

"Oh Elliot, that's not a good idea."

"Please. I just..."

Warner stared at him for a long time. Finally, she inclined her head in the smallest of nods. "If you really think you need it."

He followed her through a pair of double doors and down the long, cold hallway patterned with harsh fluorescent lights. He'd made this walk a thousand times over the years, often with the family of the victim, sometimes on his own, notebook in hand. He'd never come here for someone he truly knew, someone he cared about.

But he'd always known he would someday, didn't he? He'd always known that Olivia, with her unquenchable instinct to use herself as a human shield, to step between the bullet and the target, to turn the madman's gaze away from others towards herself - he'd always known she'd end up here and he would one day walk this barren hall to see her.

The distance, the time apart was supposed to make this easier. But it hadn't.

Warner led him further into the building, to a viewing room typically reserved for the family of the victims, not the autopsy suite like he was used to. He waited behind the glass as a man he didn't know wheeled in a body. The ME pulled back the sheet, and for a second, Elliot almost laughed with relief. It wasn't her. The resemblance was there, but it wasn't her. It couldn't be. It couldn't -

Slowly, her features swam into focus. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, the lines around her eyes a little harsher. There was a deep cut on her lip, a gash on her cheek, finger-shaped bruises lining her throat. But what had deceived him most of all was the absolute stillness with which she lay. Awake or asleep, Olivia Benson had never been this still, always overflowing with a fierce intensity. Death had changed her into a stranger, a woman without the steel in her bearing, the grace in her step, the compassionate but analytical gaze.

Somewhere past the pounding of blood in his ears, Warner was speaking. With an effort, he made himself turn.

"Sorry, what?"

"I asked if you were all right. If you think you might pass out, put your head between your knees."

"I... I'm fine. I just -" He couldn't continue.

"What he did to her was inhuman," she said, her voice dark. "When they catch him... God, I don't even know."

It took him a moment to collect himself, process her words. "So they think it's the same guy then? That... Lewis something?" He felt a peculiar pang at barely knowing the guy's name, when the face of every man who ever looked her crosswise used to burn itself into his mind. But he'd changed the channel any time the news story came on after she'd been abducted, determined to distance himself, determined that that part of his life was over. But it wasn't.

"Has to be. DNA won't be back for weeks, but it's the same M.O. He escapes from prison, and this happens? The signs are pretty clear."

Elliot closed his eyes as another wave of dizziness swept through him. "The guy who abducted and _tortured_ her escapes from prison and no one thinks to warn her? No one posts a goddamn uni outside her home?"

Warner shook her head. "They didn't even know he was gone until this morning. By the time they sent out the alert, they'd already found her."

"How? How does something like this happen?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask the detectives. Like I told you, I'm not on this case. Both of us are here only as a courtesy."

Elliot glanced at Olivia again, then quickly looked away. Seeing death had long ceased to bother him, but her presence here seemed obscene somehow, a perversion of everything right in the world.

Warner was still talking. "What I don't understand is how he could have gotten to her again. I could understand if he surprised her once, but twice? I know she's had a lot more trouble dealing with all of this than she wanted to admit. All these months it's like she's been waiting for this to happen. I can't imagine her letting her guard down. Did she seem... okay, last time you saw her? Was she more tired than usual?"

Elliot took a breath, mixed guilt and shame freezing his tongue. "I haven't... seen her," he said finally. "Not since the shooting."

Warner frowned. "I always thought... Not even after she was abducted?"

Another breath. "No."

There was a long silence. "I'm sure she understood that you had your reasons," she said finally, though reproach colored her voice.

He nodded numbly, accepting both the words and the condemnation behind them.

They spoke for a while longer, about what, Elliot couldn't say. He went home in a daze, picked up Eli from school on autopilot. The phone rang a little afterwards, the number on the caller ID still recognizable as Cragen's. He let it ring, the sound shrill in his head, deleting the message without listening. When Kathy came home and mentioned the news, he managed a noncommittal shrug. She frowned, opening her mouth as though to say something further, but Eli spilled his juice, distracting them both.

Later on, as they were going to bed, she tried again, her voice hesitant.

"I'm sorry," she said, softly touching his face. "I know you two were close."

Elliot nodded and turned out the lights, but in the darkness, he felt a pair of eyes watching him, grave and thoughtful.

The funeral was on a sunny day, the first day of spring with a real sense of warmth. Eli was solemn in his small suit and clip-on tie, Kathy pale and composed in a black dress. Dickie and Lizzie were driving over with them, Maureen and Kathleen were meeting them at the service. Olivia had touched all his children's lives in some small way, in a big way, for Eli and Kathleen. Their respect here would move her because she wouldn't expect it, could never quite believe that the help she gave freely would ever truly make her matter to others.

The crowd was dotted with half-familiar faces . Cops, both present and former. Lawyers, well at ease in their pressed suits. Former victims, who had never forgotten her kind words, her determination to push through. In the front row, Cragen, Munch and Fin sat with three detectives he didn't know, new members of the squad, probably. Across the aisle, Olivia's half-brother sat with his wife, daughter and stepson. Olivia's two half-families, who together somehow never added up to a whole.

The police commissioner spoke first, somehow managing to be both bombastic and droning at once, his words more about duty and service and the role of an officer, rather than the woman who would never again look upon a hysterical victim with uncommon gentleness.

And maybe she'd believed in everything the commissioner was saying, maybe the idea of service and protection and faithfulness unto death had flowed with her heart's blood, but that hadn't been the real reason she'd spent fifteen years at a job that had taken a little more from her every day. No, she'd spent a lifetime seeking absolution, making atonement for another man's sin. He wondered if she'd found it, if she'd finally made peace in the three years after their paths had diverged. If she'd managed a final moment of clarity at the close of a long and difficult end.

He had a sinking feeling the answer was no.

The commissioner finally stepped off the stage, and another man stood up to speak, younger than Olivia, with prominent cheekbones, his hair and eyes dark.

"I was her partner," he said without preamble, his voice catching on the word. "For more than two years. And in all my life, I never knew anyone who gave as much of herself to the job. Who still woke up every morning ready to fight to make things better. I remember -"

Abruptly, he couldn't listen to any more. He stood up and headed to the door as heads around him turned and Kathleen made a small noise of protest. He couldn't bring himself to care. The air was too thick around him, seeming to congeal in his lungs. He pushed through the heavy double doors and into the parking lot, his strides long and brisk. He finally reached his car and sat down inside, gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands, resting his forehead against his fingers, his shoulders shaking. Here would be the place to grieve, away from all the spectacle and formality of the funeral, away from everyone who paid lip service but would never truly understand the magnitude of this loss. Or worse yet, the ones who did. Yet the tears wouldn't come. Perhaps they'd fossilized within him, dried up from disuse.

"There's no crying in baseball." She was sitting in the passenger seat, unchanged from when he'd last seen her alive, brown hair falling just past her shoulders, a wry half smile on her face. "Didn't you tell me that once?"

"This isn't baseball," he said, but he smiled a little despite himself.

She settled back into the seat, staring out at the expanse of cars in the parking lot, the news cameras lining the street. "How many times have we been here in our day? Sitting on those benches, listening to the commissioner go on about duty and sacrifice?"

"I don't know. Too often."

"Comes with the job sometimes."

"Doesn't make it right."

"No.

Elliot swallowed, a tightness in his throat. "I wish it had been anyone but you," he whispered. "I'd rather he wiped out the rest of the goddamned department if it meant you could have walked away."

He didn't need to turn to see the exasperation on her face. "Elliot -"

"No." Abruptly, the rage was back, roaring back to fiery life after lying dormant in his chest for three years. "There are about a dozen people who should have died instead of you. Whichever idiots let the guy escape. The -"

"Death isn't about who deserves it," she reminded him patiently. "Trying to pretend it is will only make you crazy. And hell, in a way it's better that it was me instead of someone else. I guess I'll be mourned for a while, and maybe Cragen will have a hard time replacing me. But they'll get over it. There's no one that really needs me. No one that's going to be crushed that I'm gone. Better me than some other woman."

"I need - " he started to say, before stopping himself.

She smiled at him thinly. "See? You can't even fool yourself. Maybe you thought you needed me once, but we have three years of proof now that that's not true."

Elliot was silent, clenching the steering wheel hard enough to hurt.

Olivia eyed him for a while, then shook her head, glancing out the front window with a hint of cynical amusement. "I ought to haunt you, you know, for letting them turn my funeral into a circus."

He let out a breath. "I'd be okay with that."

She snorted. "You would. You should have at least had the sense to make sure Commissioner Morris never got up there. Would you want him at your funeral?"

"What was I supposed to do about it?"

"I don't know, tackle him before he got on stage? You've heard his speeches before. You should have known better than to let him get up there."

"Yeah, that would have gone over real well."

"What were they gonna do, fire you? It's not like you work for them anymore."

They both sobered, the flash of levity falling away abruptly. They sat in silence for a while. In the distance, the double doors opened again and people flooded out.

"I missed you," he said finally. "Every minute, every day."

She smiled at him sadly. "But you still left."

When he blinked, she was gone.


	4. Assumptions

Incidentally, I totally don't hate Cassidy. Before writing this I went and watched all the Cassidy episodes to see what all the fuss was about and I actually kind of adore him. In season 1. He's so dopey and cute; I just want to pat him on the head. And while I don't hate Cassidy 2.0 either, I just don't get him. I don't think the character they wrote for him in season 15 really matched the acting, which in turn didn't match the guy I think Cassidy would have turned out to be. All that cognitive dissonance kept making me think he was hiding something, and that's what really triggered this plot. I'm probably not terribly fair to his character in this story, but I think even canonically he's done some pretty sketchy things. And let's face it, no one's a saint in this one.

* * *

4\. Assumptions

Despite telling himself he wouldn't, Elliot found himself at the Sixteenth Precinct a week later, drawn there as inexorably as a moth to a flame. What finally broke him was a phone call from a lawyer, asking to talk to him about Olivia Benson's will and estate. He managed to respond politely, making an appointment instead of throwing his phone into the street. But after he hung up, he got in his car and drove, speeding down the street almost before he knew what he was doing.

It was real, he thought, shivering at a traffic light. Sometimes it almost seemed as though the last few days had been nothing but a dream, a nightmare that had somehow lingered into the daylight. But no one ever dreamed about bureaucracy, no one ever thought of the paperwork, all the little ways the world started to purge you from their records until there was nothing left but wisps and memories.

When the car behind him honked furiously at him to drive forward, he was grateful.

The station house hadn't changed much since he'd last come, the brick facade implacable as ever. The inside wasn't much different either, the walls slightly more yellowed, but still filled with frazzled secretaries and tired cops in both suits and uniforms.

Memories of Olivia were everywhere, laying in wait like emotional shrapnel mines. The elevator where they'd laughed together, debated cases under their breath to keep others from listening in. The hallway where she had tazed a man high on PCP, her eyes as cool as a mountain stream. The interrogation rooms, where Olivia had spent so much of her time, wheedling, consoling, or berating, whatever got the job done. Watching her had been like watching a master chess player, an artist, playing the emotions in the room with instinct and skill.

Now she'd never walk these halls again.

When he finally reached the squad room, he almost turned back, his mouth dry, his palms slightly damp. The thought of facing his old team like this was daunting. The reasons for his self-imposed exile from SVU came roaring back, having compounded with every year that passed. He'd feared seeing Olivia again, feared seeing blame in her eyes for what had happened, contempt at him for leaving. But now he found himself anxious at seeing the rest of the team too, of seeing Cragen's disappointment or Fin's scorn.

But before he could stop himself, he walked inside.

The squad room had changed too since he'd last been there. The desks were laid out differently, the holding cells were gone. New photographs sat on tables, with paperwork splayed out in new patterns of organized chaos. The room was almost empty, Cragen's office dark, the door closed. Only one detective was at his desk, his brow furrowed, a report in his hand. It was the dark-haired man from Olivia's funeral. Her new partner.

As if he'd heard the thought, the other man glanced up abruptly, standing up and setting the papers down.

"Can I help you?"

"Who are you?"

He walked over, his handshake brisk. "Detective Nick Amaro. And you are?"

"Elliot Stabler."

"What can I do for you?"

"Is Detective Munch around?" The formality felt strange on his tongue, but he didn't want to invite the questions that came with too much familiarity.

"He's working a case, sorry."

"What about Detective Tutuola?"

"Also busy."

Elliot tried for a disarming smile. "Holding down the fort all by yourself, huh?"

Amaro didn't smile back. "It's been a rough couple of months. What do you need? Maybe I can help you."

He considered it. "No. I'll catch them later. Thanks."

He'd already turned to go when the other man's voice stopped him.

"I remember you. You walked out of the funeral."

He froze, then turned. "Yeah. I didn't mean it as an insult. I just..."

"I know." Amaro watched him, unblinking. "I recognized you. You were her old partner. She had a picture of the two of you on her desk."

"Oh."

"Haven't seen you around though."

"No. You wouldn't have."

Amaro scrutinized him carefully for another moment then shook his head. "Look, something obviously happened between the two of you, and maybe it's none of my business what. But she clearly cared about you, and you're here now, so maybe you still care about her. I'm not Fin or Munch, but if something's on your mind, I'll tell you what I can. I was her partner too, you know."

Elliot hesitated for a moment. "I just want to know how something like this can happen."

"I wish I knew. I can only imagine a couple dozen people are about to lose their jobs"

"How did he escape?"

"They're still looking into that."

"Okay, how was he gone for a whole weekend before anyone noticed? You can't tell me they haven't figured out how a prisoner can go missing for two days without anyone the wiser."

"From what they're saying, it looks like it was just a paperwork issue. He was being transferred from Rikers to Bellevue on Friday, but Bellevue didn't expect him until Monday. The place is a shithole. In a way, it's not surprising."

"There's no way that just happens. No one's that lucky. He had to have someone helping him, someone on the inside. Did you check his friends, associates?"

Amaro shot him a look of stony annoyance. "Yeah, we did remember to do the absolute first thing we're supposed to do. It might surprise you, but we're not complete idiots."

"Sorry," Elliot said quickly. "I didn't mean -"

"No, I'm sorry. I overreacted" Amaro rubbed at his eyes. "It's just - He's beaten us twice now. Reporters are talking about him like he's a genius, but he's not. He's impulsive, makes too many boneheaded mistakes. But his strength is understanding people. He sees someone and instinctively knows how to charm them, manipulate them, make mistakes in his favor. But it doesn't last. People start to see through him. When we first came across him, he was living at a halfway house and everyone there hated him. There's no one that would put themselves on the line like this by helping him."

"What about family? People get pretty crazy about blood ties sometimes."

"The mom died giving birth, the dad died ten years ago. He has an aunt on his mother's side living somewhere in Nebraska - there's no indication she ever even met him."

Elliot let out a breath. If Amaro was offended by his question earlier, he definitely wouldn't like this one. "No one checked on her all weekend? No one gave her a call, stopped by her place? Especially after what happened before?"

The pain in Amaro's eyes was deep and cutting, tinged with self-loathing. "We did for a while, after she was abducted last summer. She hated it. She hated anything that reminded her of what happened, every way that anyone wanted to treat her differently. After a while, we got the hint."

Elliot nodded. That sounded like Olivia. And he had no right to condemn them anyway. If Amaro had failed in his duties, Elliot had been a thousand times worse.

Amaro was still talking. "Besides, she didn't live alone. She moved in with her boyfriend a couple months ago. "

"Boyfriend?"

"Yeah. But he wasn't home. She managed to date the only cop on the planet who works more than her."

Elliot narrowed his eyes. "And he was gone because...?"

"IAB said they had him on an undercover op all weekend."

"She was dating a guy in IAB?" He would have been no more surprised to hear that she had quit SVU to open a pie shop on the moon.

Amaro almost managed a chuckle at his expression. "He only joined IAB a couple months ago. You might have met him before. Apparently he used to work at SVU, back when Olivia started. Brian Cassidy."

The name rang only the faintest of bells.

"What's he like?"

Amaro hesitated. "I'm not the best guy to ask about that. We've had our problems. Most people would tell you he's a decent guy, works hard."

"And what would you say?"

"I wouldn't disagree. We're never going to be close, but that doesn't mean he's a bad person. He obviously cares about Olivia a lot, and he makes - made her happy. That's all I need. It's just that if a guy punches you in the face when you first meet, you're never going to be best friends."

Elliot chuckled slightly. "I've made a couple friends that way, actually."

Amaro's expression didn't change. "There were other things too."

"Like what?"

"Like things that are none of your business."

Elliot took the hint. "IAB offices still in the basement?"

* * *

Five minutes later, Elliot walked out of the elevator, brow furrowed, nearly bumping into the man in front of him. He was trying to dredge up his memories of Brian Cassidy, but he found there weren't many. He'd lasted less than a year at SVU, burned out by the endless parade of tragedy. He had indeed been a nice enough guy from what Elliot could recall, young for his age but sincere and well-meaning. But not a man he would have ever imagined Olivia dating.

Dimly, he recalled that Cassidy and Olivia did have a fling fifteen years ago. He knew only because Olivia had told him about it afterwards, wearing the look she had whenever she thought she'd screwed up a case. He remembered feeling vague pity for the guy, who was obviously head over heels for her, but not quite within her league. But they'd ended up together after all.

Consumed by his thoughts, Elliot missed the door to the IAB offices and was forced to backtrack several feet, the muscles in his chest tightening slightly as he approached.

He'd never come here willingly on his own - usually he ended up in these basement rooms after an act of death or violence. He expected some echo of memory, some flashback to his final interrogation where Ed Tucker had stared down at him with cold accusation as he felt the warm drip of blood from his hands, even though he'd washed them clean dozens of times already. But there was nothing. IAB's squad room looked no different than anyone else's, desks scattered about, covered with half-finished paperwork. It was largely deserted at the moment. Only Brian Cassidy was there, sitting in a desk in the far left corner, his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped.

Watching him, Elliot felt a surge of compassion. If there was one person here who might understand what he was feeling, it would be Cassidy. However surprised Elliot was at their relationship, he'd apparently loved Olivia too, and now was not the time for petty jealousies.

"Hey," he said, and Cassidy jumped, as though someone had punched him unexpectedly.

Seeing him close up, Elliot understood why he'd felt no flicker of recall upon seeing him at the funeral. The Brian Cassidy of his memories had been marked by artless naivety, enthusiastic boyishness shining from his face. The man staring back at him now brought to mind a wary stray, closed and cautious.

"Uh, hi," he said uncertainly. "Can I... help you?"

"It's Elliot Stabler. We worked together way back. I was Olivia's partner."

He saw recognition slowly dawn on his face.

"Oh yeah. I thought you looked familiar. It's been a long time.

"Yeah."

There was a long, awkward pause, and Elliot wondered why he had come. For information, commiseration? To try and understand this man that Olivia had finally deemed worthy? To ask -

_Where were you when it mattered?_

But no, that would be the wrong thing to say right now. Elliot needed to believe that she'd been happy before the end, needed to believe that she'd found something for herself outside of her job.

"I heard you two were together," he said instead. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Cassidy looked away, clenching his jaw and blinking away tears. "It's, uh, still hard to believe sometimes."

"Grief takes time."

"I know."

"How'd you two end up meeting again?"

"We met on a case two years back- big prostitution bust - you might have heard about it on the news. I was undercover for a guy named Bart Ganzel, one of the kingpins. He turned up on SVU's radar too, and when Olivia and I ran into each other we just hit it off."

"That's good."

The silence was longer this time, tension hanging oddly in the air between them. It brought to mind two dogs eyeing each other, unsure of whether to bare their teeth or wag their tails. Elliot had never had much to do with Cassidy even when he was back at SVU but he never would have guessed back then that this was how the man would turn out. Had they really been dogs, the Brian Cassidy of his memories would have been a puppy, tripping cheerily over his own paws, eager to show you the pine cone he'd found by throwing it up all over your shoes. Fifteen years later, he'd returned as the grown dog, but one who bore the distinct aura of being kicked once too often, who stared back at Elliot with a sense of hooded caginess.

_What happened to you when you were undercover?_ Elliot wondered suddenly. Something bad, he suspected. Something beyond the typical law enforcement descent into cynicism.

Cassidy cleared his throat uncomfortably. "So uh, how long were you guys partners?"

"About twelve years."

The other man's eyebrows shot up. "That's - wow. So you didn't split up that long ago."

"I put in my papers a couple years back."

"It's weird, you think she would have mentioned you. She talked about work like all the time."

Elliot shook his head. "There were some... issues near the end."

"Right. None of my business." He glanced away. "Look, thanks for stopping by, but I've got a lot of stuff left to do - "

"I'm surprised you're back at work already. You'd think they'd give you more time off after what happened."

Cassidy stared at his desk, his eyes haunted. "I'd rather keep working. Time off just gives you too much time to think."

"I know the feeling." Elliot extended his hand to shake. "Again, sorry for your loss. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks."

Elliot went home.

It wasn't until later that night, in bed, nearly drifting off to sleep, that a sudden thought jolted him awake. There had been nothing particularly unusual about his meetings earlier. Nothing untoward or suspicious. But today had been a day of too little information and too many assumptions. And as any detective could tell you, assumptions could be very dangerous. Assumptions led to cold cases, false convictions. Assumptions made you miss things you should have seen from the start. And when a woman was killed, who was the first suspect? Who was the very first person whose life you should examine? Why, the boyfriend of course.

He rolled onto his back to stare at the darkened ceiling, feeling oddly guilty for even entertaining the thought. More for Olivia's sake than Cassidy's. She would never have let anyone into her life that she wasn't completely sure about. He might not know Cassidy anymore but he knew her.

But then again, who would be more capable of deceiving a detective than a career undercover? One who'd spent a decade playing someone else, who'd worked his way into the good graces of the savviest of criminals, who had in fact likely spent more time around those on the wrong side of the law than those on the right?

It was an absurd thought. Yet it remained, hovering in the recesses of his mind.

Sleep didn't come that night.


	5. Patterns

This chapter makes references the following episodes: 11x3 Solitary, 14x1 Lost Reputation, 14x17 Undercover Blue, and 15x10 Psycho/Therapist. You don't have to have seen them, just thought I'd cite my sources.

* * *

5\. Patterns

Elliot spent the next day reading up on Brian Cassidy in the newspaper archives, telling himself it was idle curiosity about an old colleague he'd lost touch with, rather than anything sinister. It certainly didn't make for dull reading, anyway. The man had been busy. Cassidy had mentioned his work undercover with Bart Ganzel, whose trial had been something of a circus. He was in prison now, doing 20 years to life. What Cassidy hadn't mentioned was his demotion for sleeping with a prostitute while on the job, and his rape charge, only a year back.

_Why would Olivia date a man like this?_ Elliot wondered, scanning through each article with increasing disbelief.

Maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed. False accusations of all types were hardly unheard of against cops. As for the other thing, well, for all he knew, there might be a good explanation for that too. Everyone made mistakes. And if Cassidy had convinced Olivia, who was notoriously cautious about men, who was Elliot to disagree?

_So drop it._

But he couldn't. He had to understand, he had to reassure himself that there had been nothing untoward about the final days of her life. Confirm to himself that the man in her life had been good, had been worthy. He supposed he could go back to the squad room and ask his old teammates, but he found himself reluctant. He wanted an opinion less slanted in his favor, from someone who had known him better than as just the significant other of a teammate. Which left IAB. Or the criminals with whom he'd been undercover. Between the two, he'd go with the criminals.

Bart Ganzel had been transferred to a prison in Virginia, but Andre LaRouche, the john for Cassidy's alleged victim, was in New York. Currently serving ten years in Sing Sing, the prison where Elliot still had connections. It would be easy to get in to see him, ask some questions about the kind of man Cassidy had been. Sure he was undercover at the time, but being undercover was essentially playing some version of yourself. After working together so closely with him, the man might know Cassidy better than the cops did now.

_If you really wanted to know about Cassidy, you'd go to Munch or Amaro,_ his mind whispered viciously. _This isn't about him. This is about your constant need to prove to yourself that you're the best man in Olivia's life. And guess what? You're not. You haven't said a word to her in three years, you didn't so much as pick up the phone when you heard she'd been kidnapped. You know who _was_ there? Brian Cassidy. He was the one who drove her back and forth from the hospital, held her while she tried not to cry, did all the things you never did. You don't deserve to be involved in anything about this situation. Leave it alone._

Elliot closed his eyes, putting his head in his hands for a long moment. Then he stood up and headed to his car.

* * *

It took more than a little fast talking to get the guards at Sing Sing to let him inside without a badge, for all several of them still remembered him from his earlier investigations. It took even more fast talking to get them to find the guard named Dan Kravitz, Elliot's cousin by marriage. They'd never particularly gotten along, but Elliot had once interceded for him when a bar fight got ugly, which was the kind of thing the man took seriously. He didn't seemed pleased today though, looking at Elliot with some mix of uncertainty and irritation.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he growled

"I need to interview one of your prisoners. Andre LaRouche. Off the books." Kravitz didn't know Elliot was no longer a police officer, and Elliot felt no need to enlighten him.

"Not a chance. Ever since that Lewis guy escaped, security's been upped in prisons all over the state. There's rumors that they're sending down auditors next week. We don't need any irregularities right now."

"Come on. It's not like prison visits are a big deal."

"Yeah, you're free to do a visit. File the proper paperwork and give us about three days to process.

"You can't just do me a favor?"

"You used up your favor, remember? You used it to hang out in solitary for three days so you could get all Kumbaya with a guy who threw you off a roof."

Elliot grinned, narrowing his eyes. "Really? That's my favor? How about you do this for me and I'll owe you this time. I can spend the next decade in your debt instead. That'll make a nice change."

"Heh. I doubt you'll ever have anything I need again." But it was clear the idea appealed to him, and he squinted out at the hallway, his eyes thoughtful. "You just want to talk? No funny business?"

"Swear to God."

"All right. You've got half an hour. Make it count."

Andre LaRouche was a tall man who gave off the sense of being small, his shaved head and attempts at a fierce scowl failing to hide something rat-like about his weedy frame. Watching the man's expression flicker between contempt and false bravado, Elliot realized what was missing. Surprise. The man found nothing odd about a cop or someone with cop connections wanting to speak with him with no warning, seemingly out of the blue. And that was never a good sign

Elliot was about to speak when LaRouche cut him off, his sneer full-fledged now, wrinkling his cheeks and baring his teeth.

"You cops really pull out the stops when it's one of your own, huh? None of that same justice for us common folk, but someone touches a cop, there's no stone left unturned."

Elliot closed his mouth, leaning back a little, hiding his confusion. How would LaRouche know that he was here about Olivia? True, investigating the boyfriend was standard procedure, but this man would have had no way of knowing the two had been dating.

"I just go where I'm told," he lied, his voice neutral.

"Heh. Did Rick send you here? Too chickenshit to face me himself? I kind of figured he was the kind of guy who would weasel himself into a place where he could order people around."

_Who the hell was Rick?_ Cassidy's undercover name, perhaps?

Elliot shrugged. "So tell me about him," he said diffidently, like the question was offhand.

LaRouche's eyes glittered. "Man, I knew that guy was bad news from the start. He looks all normal when you first see him, but there's something in his eyes. You can tell there's something not right in there. That he likes to hurt people."

Elliot bit back a frown. Even in his worst estimation of Cassidy, that didn't sound like him. "What did he do, then?"

"An hour after he comes in, one of the girls - Brooklynn, I think - she comes out of the room, half-naked, screaming, bleeding like a stuck pig. I don't know what he did to her, but I kicked him out after that." He looked at Elliot piously. "See, people say I'm such a bad guy, but I took care of my girls. Wouldn't let anyone hurt them. Lots of guys wouldn't even bother."

Elliot let out a sigh of frustration at the obvious lie. It had been naïve to expect a criminal to be honest about the man who'd put him away. "If an undercover cop was going around stabbing girls, you'd think this is the kind of thing you'd bring up at your trial," he said dryly.

It was LaRouche's turn to frown and look baffled. "What the hell are you - " Realization dawned, and he began to laugh, throwing his head back as the noise echoed oddly off the stone walls of the cell. "You think I was talking about _Rick_? Oh man. He didn't tell you, huh?"

The noise made Elliot want to grit his teeth. "Tell me what?"

He was still chuckling, staring at Elliot with malevolent amusement. "Now I wonder why he wouldn't tell you guys? Guess he could have forgot. But I doubt it. Rick likes to play dumb. But he's not.

Elliot was hardly oblivious either. "You're talking about William Lewis. You and Cassidy - Rick - you knew him."

LaRouche ignored him. "Or maybe he was afraid to bring it up. He's got his own skeletons you know, especially with Brooklynn. I thought he'd spill after something like this. But I'm not surprised that he didn't. The thing about Rick is that Rick always comes first."

"You wanna explain what the hell you're talking about?" Elliot said, keeping tight rein on his temper.

"Don't think so," LaRouche said with a smirk. "If your own guys aren't telling you anything, who am I to do anything different?"

"If you want a deal - a reduced sentence or something, we can bring the DAs here and you can talk it out. If you have information about a big case like the Lewis one, I'm sure they're going to be very accommodating."

"Nah, see, I don't want a deal. I got a new lawyer who's a real whiz kid. Got two charges thrown out on appeal already. I'll be out before winter. I don't need dick from you now."

Elliot leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. "All right, that was the carrot, here's the stick. You think you'll get out by winter? Cops can make your life very hard in the meantime. And I don't just mean in here. Maybe you'll end up in front of stricter judges, suddenly get a better DA working on your case. Maybe you won't be out as soon as you think. All because you don't want to say anything against the cop who put you away. Now, does that make any sense to you?"

LaRouche matched the motion, his grin becoming even less pleasant. "That sounded like a threat. I don't like threats. And here's another thing. I don't think your bosses know that you're here. This whole talk has been too hush hush. This isn't a real case. This is some personal thing against Rick. I doubt you can do jack squat to me." He leaned back, folding his arms smugly. "So that's how it is. When you see Rick again, tell him I say hi. Tell him I might see him when I get out. But right now, I'm done talking."

And try as Elliot might, he couldn't get the man to say another word.

* * *

Driving away from the prison, Elliot's first call was to Kathy, telling her he'd be missing dinner - emergency at work. Then he headed towards the station house, his car illuminated in the rays of the setting sun. It was well past official working hours for SVU, but unless things had changed dramatically, someone would be around.

When he reached the squad room, the lights were off, but Munch and the detective he'd spoken to earlier were deep in conversation right near the door. They broke off when they saw Elliot approaching. Under different circumstances, Elliot might have found their matching expressions of surprise amusing, but today he only felt tension.

"Elliot," Munch said, his eyebrows raised. "Amaro mentioned you came by earlier. I thought you were going to avoid us forever."

He tried for a smile. "Maybe I was. But after what happened..."

Munch had aged since Elliot had last seen him, the wrinkles on his face hanging more heavily, his hair closer to white than gray. Grief exacerbated these changes, taking away some sense of spry impishness in his movements, making him look for the first time like an old man.

"I thought you might," he said. "I wish it could have been under better circumstances. But what brings you back now? Something else you wanted to know?"

"Not really," Elliot said. "I think I might have some information of my own."

And before he could stop himself, the whole story came tumbling out, of his meeting with Cassidy, his research, his interview with Andre LaRouche that hinted at something dire. When he finished, there was a long, embarrassed silence, as Munch and Amaro rather awkwardly avoided looking at him, the way one might look away from a man who suddenly began to sing in a subway.

Finally, Munch spoke. "Surprise, surprise," he said dryly. "Elliot Stabler doesn't trust Olivia's boyfriend. Thought you might have cooled off after three years away."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Let's just say there's a reason she stopped telling you about the men she dated. Look, it's fair of you to be cautious, but this is pretty low. The guy's hurting just as much as you are. Don't make things harder for him."

"She's attacked twice in one year and her boyfriend is conveniently gone for both? You don't think any of this is even a little suspicious?"

"And they say I'm paranoid. Are you listening to yourself, Elliot? We all let her down. You can't just single out Cassidy."

"I'm not singling him out. LaRouche said -"

"And did you go interviewing anyone else's enemies? Did you talk to mine or Fin's or Cragen's?"

"I didn't mention Cassidy _or_ Lewis at the start. He brought them up himself. He expected someone to come by."

"Cassidy put him in jail," Munch pointed out. "He has every reason to go out of his way to get him in trouble."

Elliot plunged forward doggedly. "It's not just what LaRouche said. I read about Cassidy in the papers. He's demoted for sleeping with a prostitute on the job, and then he gets accused of rape? Do you know what you'd be calling this if this were anyone else? A pattern."

"The accusation was proven false. As for the call girl, Cassidy said it was more of a relationship."

"And did you ask her what _she_ thought about it?"

"By the time we found out, she was already dead. Found in Cragen's bed, in fact. Did you go out and snoop about _him?_"

The description triggered another warning bell in his head.

"Cassidy said he and Olivia 'hit it off' right after they met during that case. So his girlfriend gets her throat slit in his ex-captain's bed, and within the week he takes up with an old fling? Sounds like true love to me."

"People deal with grief in different ways. What is it that you think he did, Elliot?"

He hesitated. "I'm not sure. I just think that something about all of this stinks to high heaven." He turned to the younger man, who had been listening silently, his expression conflicted. "You sense it too."

Amaro opened his mouth and closed it, pausing before he spoke. "Look, I can't stand the guy. But he wouldn't do - whatever it is you're thinking about. I always thought he was kind of an asshole. But it was pretty obvious he loved her."

"Are you that new to SVU? People hurt the ones they love all the time. Why can't you consider the idea that Cassidy isn't who you think he is?

"Because what you're suggesting is absurd," Munch snapped.

Elliot narrowed his eyes. "It would fill in some gaps though. I heard you still don't know how Lewis got into her apartment a year ago."

"The guy's a career criminal. He probably picked the lock."

"How did he know where she lived?"

"He could have followed her after the first trial."

"And got there first?"

"If someone on the inside really leaked that information, that doesn't prove it's Cassidy. It could be you or me or Cragen. Hell, the information is on file. All you really need is one careless secretary."

" When he didn't report her missing for two days that first time, did you check his story at all?"

"We didn't have time. And I don't know if you remember, but she came back alive that time. I'm pretty sure she would have mentioned it if Cassidy was involved somehow."

"How are you all this blind?" Elliot almost snarled. "You can't even see what's right in front of you."

Munch looked at him for a long time, not with anger, but with sadness. "I'm not the one who's blinded, Elliot," he said quietly. "You haven't changed at all. And I'd truly hoped you would. I'm sorry if you resent that Olivia managed to make a life without you -"

"I don't -"

"- but that's no reason to take it out on Cassidy. Go home, Elliot. Come back when you've simmered down a little. We can all go get a drink and talk about old times. I know Olivia would have liked that."

With that, Munch brushed past him, followed by Amaro, leaving Elliot standing stock still, alone in the hallway, his expression frozen in a look of stunned guilt.


	6. Miles to Babylon

This chapter rather heavily references 14x17-Undercover Blue. It's helpful but not totally necessary to have seen it.

* * *

Once he'd gotten past his initial anger, Elliot found himself unperturbed by Munch's skepticism. He and Cassidy had been partners back in the day, and it was the nature of partners - even former partners - to stand by each other. Olivia had had his back dozens of times when he was in the wrong. He'd expect no less from Munch for Cassidy. He thought he might still be able to sway Amaro, but he'd need more than cobwebs and hunches to do so, which means he needed to find Heather Riggs, alias Brooklynn.

His first step was to buy a prepaid cell phone - a burner phone. He had a pretty strong sense that this line of inquiry was about to lead him places somewhat off the straight and narrow. Then he started doing some digging.

At the time of the allegations, Heather Riggs had been working as an instructor at a pole dancing studio. It had gone under within the past year. The owner had been arrested - then released - for drug crimes, and of course, one of their instructors had been outed as a former prostitute and filed a false claim of rape. All the bad publicity had doubtlessly contributed to the company's downfall. The building had already been repainted and repurposed as a yoga studio, the records of the previous tenant long purged.

Fortunately, some of the clients of the previous studio had stayed for the yoga.

"Pole dancing doesn't have to be about sex," he was informed by a burly blonde with a rather aggressive jut to her jaw. "It's getting a workout while embracing your power and femininity as a woman. But yoga is okay, and this place is right by my apartment, so whatever."

"Right," said Elliot. "So can you give me a name? Maybe a phone number of one of these power and femininity instructors?"

She could. This led to a former dance instructor, who in turn pointed him to another dance instructor, who very reluctantly gave him the name of an escort service and an alias - Tiffany.

Despite everything, Elliot found that he was almost enjoying himself. He'd missed this - following breadcrumbs, tailing leads, wheedling information from reluctant witnesses. He'd been born to do this. But when he paused, when he hesitated, let himself think, he could still hear the shuddering final breaths of a young woman, a reminder of why he'd stopped.

The next part would be tricky, anyway. He couldn't simply wander into her workplace and ask to see her, the way he had with these other women. And without the badge to shield him, getting caught calling on an escort would be bad in about a thousand different ways. The sane thing to do would be to stop here. Maybe Munch was right, maybe this was nothing but a witch hunt on Elliot's part. Maybe his mistrust was nothing but _-(jealousy)-_ paranoia. He'd spent all this time chasing ghosts and shadows on the weakest of leads. It was time to let this go.

He closed his eyes and memory washed over him, of Olivia sitting across their desks, her head tilted slightly, her eyes speculative as she watched him. After another moment, he picked up his burner phone and began to dial.

A day later, he waited for Heather Riggs in the lobby of a midscale hotel, sitting in an overstuffed chair and watching the revolving door while trying not to seem too anxious. He wondered idly why the woman had backslid. Escorts could often make more money than dance instructors, true, but at a cost. And while a couple hundred for an evening - the price he'd been given - was hardly chump change, it wasn't exactly on the high end for escorts. It shouldn't have been enough to tempt her from legitimacy.

He'd have to take a shift or two of overtime at work to cover tonight's shenanigans, anyway. He and Kathy were no longer on the financial edge (apparently one six-year old in the house was much cheaper than four teens) but not so much that she wouldn't notice hundreds of dollars missing. It was okay though. He thought of it as paying for peace of mind. He'd pay a hundred times the amount to get over Jenna Fox.

"Mr. Davis?" A voice shook him from his reverie.

"Uh, yes."

The woman smiled at him. "I'm Tiffany. I was told to meet you here."

Elliot looked her over for a moment.

She was pale, with dark hair and delicate bone structure. Her eyes were downcast in a show of demure vulnerability, though her face was set with an underlay of cynicism that she couldn't quite hide. She was young, Kathleen's age, perhaps, with a little bit of the same roundness to her cheeks that belied her thin frame. But unlike Kathleen, she was already showing signs of a difficult life, her skin rough beneath her makeup as she moved with the slightly jerky energy of an addict waiting for her next fix.

"Great," he said, and nodded towards the elevator. "Let's go upstairs."

She pouted a little. "Doesn't a girl get some dinner first?"

"Later," he said, trying not to sound brusque. If anyone recognized him here, it would be very bad.

Her smile didn't waver, but her eyes flickered with caution as she followed him towards the hallway.

Once inside the hotel room, he closed the door behind him with a firm clack, then gestured to a chair. "Sit down."

She complied, staring up at him through lowered lashes. "How do you want it?"

"I want nothing like that," he said firmly. "I just have some questions, that's all."

She paused, processing his words. Then her face twisted with fear and anger, and she jumped to her feet.

"You're a cop. I knew it." She jumped to her feet.

"No, I'm not."

Her laugh dripped with contempt. "Sure you're not. I'm leaving. You can't stop me."

He waited until she reached the door before speaking again. "Let's say I am a cop. I could bust you right now for prostitution, and I don't think that's what you want. But if I'm not a cop, I'm paying you for your time and I can't use what you say against you. Either way, it's in your best interest to talk to me. All I want is information. No one will ever know where it came from."

She hesitated, biting her lip, fingers grazing the doorknob. Finally she scowled, slouching back to the hard hotel chair.

"Fine. No promises, but what do you want?"

He had a thousand questions about Lewis, about LaRouche's cryptic words. But watching the bitterness in her eyes, a different question entirely popped out instead.

"Did Brian Cassidy really rape you?"

"Why are you asking me? The NYPD already made up their minds. I was lying. For money." Her lip curled contemptuously. "We sat alone in a room in a whorehouse for two hours and talked about dogs. I only knew about the scar on his leg because his old boss Ganzel told me, and everyone's boss has seen their junk right? Afterwards, I told a 'friend' that he never touched me, even though only an idiot would tell anyone information that could get us both in trouble, and you'd think a defense lawyer who found another detective's bastard son would be able to find such an obvious witness. Everyone believes what they want to believe and we all get to go home. End of story."

"I don't want to know what the NYPD thinks. I want the truth."

The corners of her lips curled into a hard smile. "And I already told the truth. It was my first day, and I already wanted to back out. But you don't get to back out when you've already gone this far. LaRouche told Cassidy to go 'break me in.' Cassidy argued, but in the end, he took me to one of the rooms. I was afraid, but so was he. He wasn't cruel about it, and I didn't fight. Now what would you call that?"

"I'd call it rape."

She laughed in his face. "Maybe you aren't a cop after all. Maybe you're a politician, because those sound like heavy words that you don't really mean. Out in the real world, people do bad things to each other all the time to survive, and no one gives a damn. I didn't even hold it against him, you know. Maybe he'd be dead if he said no. We all do what we have to. But he did what he did, and you know what? No one in the world ever believed me. Not even the lawyer who tried the case believed me. All the time he was interviewing me, I could just see him thinking about if it was going to help his career. He didn't care it was true. And now you come here, all sad-eyed and soft voiced, but I know you don't care what happened to me. You're only here because that cop was killed."

Elliot paused before he spoke, trying to tread carefully. "What makes you say that?

She stared him down scornfully. "If you didn't do your detective work , I'm not gonna do it for you."

"William Lewis. You met him before. So did Cassidy.

"Yeah."

"He was a... client."

"You could say that."

"A regular customer?"

"No. He only came by once."

Elliot frowned. "Cassidy did that undercover job five years ago. How would you and LaRouche both still remember him?"

She glared. "You don't forget a guy like him." She ripped back the shoulder of her blouse to reveal a small puckered scar. "He gave me that. You know, one thing about this - this job, it's that you kind of expect freaks. People pay you to do things their girlfriends won't. You think you can't be surprised anymore, but this guy -" Her eyes darkened in recollection. "You should have seen his face when I screamed. He was like a kid ripping open a candy bar. He just got a taste and he wanted more."

"How did he afford you? The guy's practically a drifter. He couldn't pay your prices."

"Beats me. Maybe Cassidy let him in."

"Why would he do that?"

"They knew each other. When he pulled him off me, he said something like 'I told you, you can't do this,' like he was expecting it. He dragged him outside and I never saw him again until he was on the news."

Elliot closed his eyes for a moment. Proof, at last. Proof of a real connection between Lewis and Cassidy. Not much of one, perhaps. The word of a prostitute who had already allegedly lied to get Brian Cassidy in trouble would be viewed with deep skepticism. But in such a high profile investigation, they would have to be thorough, follow up even the more tenuous leads. It enough for an investigation, a second look.

"Would you be willing to testify about this? Or at least to talk to police about it?"

She smiled coldly. "Not a chance."

"Look, a cop has been killed. That's a big deal. If you help break the case, a lot of people in law enforcement are going to be grateful to you. That's a good position to be in."

"Right, because cops have been so great to me before. I'm just dying to help them out."

"I understand that you don't like cops. But the detective who was killed - her name was Olivia Benson - she was different. She would -"

She cut him off. "Yeah, I heard them talk about her on the news, like she's a saint, like she's always on the victims' side. But when I walked into SVU and accused a cop of raping me, do you want to know what happened? They treated me like a criminal. Even after they handed off the case to a different department, they dug through my life, talked to my coworkers, my friends, looking for anyone who might contradict my story. And when that didn't work, they twisted my boyfriend's arm until he agreed to make a drug deal, then arrested him, of course.

She smiled thinly. "They brought me in to watch his interrogation - brought me in from home to watch him talk to guys who had hurt him and threatened him only a couple hours earlier. And why do you think I was there? The drugs had nothing to do with me. Everyone got the picture. My boyfriend said I lied and so did I. No one was going to accept a different answer. I called up one of the girls I knew to pretend to back up my story, got the charges dropped. And _she_ was there the whole time, looking at me like I was scum. You cops are all the same. Serves her -"

Elliot jumped to his feet, his vision actually darkening with rage, his fists clenching involuntarily. "Don't you dare." he snarled. "Don't you fucking dare. You have no idea what you're talking about."

She lifted her chin and stared at him coolly. "Go ahead. Hit me. It won't be the first time."

His rage drained away abruptly, like the bottom had given way, and he took a deep breath "I wasn't - look, I'm sorry for what happened to you. I know she would be too. If she'd had any idea, any at all, it would have haunted her, believe me. But you have to understand, investigations are always hard, always uncomfortable. And the timing made it worse. You show up, out of the blue, right before a big trial, with accusations against the star witness. People were bound to think something was up. Beyond that..." He shrugged. "We think we really know the people around us, but we don't. All we can do is choose the ones we trust. Sometimes we're wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. Even Detective Benson. All I can say is I'm sorry."

She stared at him hard for a moment, then finally looked away. "It was never meant to succeed, anyway," she said quietly, almost to herself, her eyes forlorn. "No one thought they'd really bring charges. They screwed up my life just to send a warning. I just thought... it would have been nice... if someone would have been on my side for once in my life. Even for a little while."

Elliot leaned forward, gripping his knees hard enough to bruise. "Warning? What do you mean?"

She blinked and then scowled. "It's nothing. I said too much already."

"Look, I swear, no one will hear what you tell me. I just need to know."

"Even if you tell, no one's going to believe you. I'm a liar with a grudge against Cassidy, remember? I haven't said anything anyone's going to care about."

"If you're afraid, if you think someone's going to retaliate against you, you can get protection -"

"Where the hell were you when I said I don't like cops? I'd rather be shot than have cops hang around more than they already do. Besides, I doubt I know anything important enough that they'd spend the money to protect me." She stood up abruptly, grabbing her purse. "I'm leaving now. If you want to complain, call the police. I'm sure they'll be real sympathetic."

He stopped her before she reached the door. "Wait." He scribbled the number to his burner phone on a hotel pad and handed it to her. "Take my number. Call me if you need help. Nothing huge or illegal. But if you want some help getting clean, making a better life, ring me up. I'll do what I can."

She didn't move. "Pretending to be nice won't make me tell you what happened."

"I don't expect it will."

"Why would you want to help me then?"

"Because maybe the system let you down. And that's not right. And because Olivia - Detective Benson - would have wanted me to."

She looked at him with something between envy and scorn. "You really loved her, didn't you?"

"We were... close."

Her lower lip trembled for the barest of moments. Then she scowled and snatched the paper from his hand. "Don't expect a call." She pushed past him out the door, slamming it behind her.

Elliot stood still for a few long moments, staring at the air in her wake. He might have expected some sense of triumph, some feeling of vindication at having his instincts confirmed. But he only felt exhaustion. And fear. Maybe he was confident about his hunch now, but he was still fathoms away from making a solid case, something that would convince an outsider, a jury. But one thing was for certain. This had moved beyond him now. In the morning, he'd call Amaro, or better yet, Cragen. They'd be skeptical, but he'd talk them around.

And then the chase would be on.


	7. Therefore as a Stranger

7\. Therefore as a Stranger

At the same time that Elliot was waiting anxiously in a hotel lobby across town, Munch was strolling up to a much more familiar building, smiling genially at a doe eyed 20-something who held the door open for him. The elevator in Brian and Olivia's apartment building was almost comically slow, but for once John Munch didn't mind. He needed the extra time. To think, and to worry.

It wasn't surprising that Elliot would have his suspicions about Cassidy - he'd always been leery of any man Olivia deigned to date, and three years apart had apparently changed nothing. No, Elliot's reaction wasn't too far out of the norm. It was the fact that Munch himself was starting to have doubts that was worrisome.

The idea that Cassidy might have something to do with Olivia's death shouldn't have seemed so impossible. After years as a detective, he'd seen too much strangeness to dismiss anything out of hand. Munch believed in a great many things that others deemed implausible, from aliens to government conspiracies to Roswell. He'd see mothers kill their children, children kill their playmates, men sobbing over the corpses of their wives that they'd butchered only moments before. No, there were few things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in his philosophy nowadays. But somehow the idea that Cassidy, the rookie detective with the good natured smile and the sympathetic gaze could ever do something truly terrible - well, the craziest conspiracy theory was downright probable in comparison.

But no, he corrected himself. Cassidy was no rookie anymore, he hadn't been for over a decade. His sunny innocence had become a honed wariness, his choirboy good looks fading into something hardened and more weathered. It had been fourteen years now since they'd worked together, long enough for each cell in the human body to replace itself twice, but first impressions were somehow hard to shake. It was easy to go day after day seeing only what you expected to see, until one day you blinked and found you were staring at a stranger.

He felt an odd pang of guilt that he hadn't done a better job of keeping in touch. He'd been closer to a mentor than a partner during Cassidy's time at SVU, and Cassidy was the kind of guy who'd needed a mentor back then, all too inclined to throw himself wholeheartedly into everything he did, especially his mistakes. They'd had lunch every couple weeks for a while after he left, but that had stopped soon enough. And that only made sense. It was human nature for even the closest of people to drift apart - Elliot and Olivia were prime examples of that.

He finally found himself at Cassidy's front door, and he knocked with only the barest hint of hesitation. There was a clattering noise from inside, followed by the sound of footsteps, and the light disappeared from the peephole.

Munch sighed and crossed his arms as the door opened.

"Hey." Cassidy stared out at him, his hair rumpled, hands covered in dust. "What are you doing here?"

"What, a guy can't come by to check how you're doing?" Without waiting for an invitation, he wandered into the apartment, which bore unmistakable signs of packing, cardboard boxes scattered about, nails jutting emptily from the walls where pictures once hung. Munch frowned. "Going somewhere?"

"Moving. Can't stay here after what happened."

"You could have mentioned it to someone," he said gently. "You didn't have to do this on your own."

Cassidy threw another shirt into the suitcase with a little more force than necessary. "Yeah, I did."

Munch watched him toss DVDs haphazardly into boxes for a moment, neither of them speaking. Finally, Cassidy paused and looked up.

"Is that all you came here for? I'm fine. I'm dealing with it. And thanks for stopping by, but I can't say I'm much fun to be around right now."

"Like I said, if you need anything..."

"Got it."

Munch paused for a moment before continuing. "I also had a couple questions for you. Just hoping you could clear some things up."

"Okay, shoot."

"When you were undercover with Andre LaRouche, did you ever have to throw anyone out for getting too rough with the girls?"

It could have been nothing, but Cassidy seemed to tense a little at the question, hesitate a fraction of a second too long.

"Sure, lots of times. Guys who visit prostitutes aren't usually the cream of the crop."

"Any of them stand out in particular?"

"Not really. Why?"

And as a friend, that should have been enough. A plausible denial, Cassidy looking back at him with exactly the right mix of annoyance and curiosity. But as a detective...

"I talked to your old supervisor at the courthouse," he lied abruptly. "He told me you volunteered for an extra shift, but your message to Olivia made it sound like it wasn't your choice."

The answer came immediately. "My asshole supervisor doesn't know what 'volunteer' even means. You don't step up to cover shifts when he needs it, he'll give you shit for weeks. Look, if I knew what was going to happen, I would have told him no. But it was just lunch. Olivia used to cancel all the time. I'm sorry for what happened, believe me. If I'd had any idea... but I didn't. So why don't you tell me what you're really here for?"

"It's just that Lewis has good timing, doesn't he? Each time he strikes, he hits at a time where there's no one to miss Olivia when she disappears."

"What, and you're blaming me? Why not Cragen too? Didn't he give her two days off right after the trial? You really think I would hurt her?"

There was a pause. "My gut says you'd be the last person to ever hurt her," Munch said slowly. "You were always crazy for her, right from the start. I still remember how you used to rush through your paperwork just to finish early and watch her do hers. The whole squad thought you were hopeless."

Cassidy finally looked away then, his mask of impassivity slipping for a fraction of a second. But what lay beneath was not grief or anger but self-loathing, deep and cutting. And suddenly, Munch knew.

"But, of course, working at SVU teaches you over and over again how quickly love turns to hate. You want her, but she barely gives you a second glance and it still hurts, years later. Or you get into a relationship and regret it when find out it's not what you expected. People hurt the ones they love for the worst of reasons."

Cassidy let out a bark of incredulous laughter. "What, you think I sold her out to Lewis because she blew me off fifteen years ago or I don't know how to say we're breaking up? You've lost it."

"No. No, you wouldn't. Not for that. So why, then? Why did you do it?"

"I - do what? I was gone all weekend. You already checked my alibi."

"I defended you when Elliot came in with his accusations. I told him the man I knew would never dream of doing anything to hurt Olivia. But you were involved with this, you helped Lewis somehow. And then you had the gall to stay in her life, betray her twice."

Cassidy stood up, his eyes cold. "Get out," he said flatly. "I had nothing to do with what happened and I can't believe you'd think I would.

Munch didn't move. "When I leave here, I'm going straight back to the squad room. I'm going to open an official investigation, tell the squad I found proof that you knew Lewis and were holding back -"

"I didn't -"

"-and how well do you think your stories, your alibis are going to hold when the NYPD starts digging through every second of your life, every moment you've left unmentioned for the last couple years? Do you really think you'll get away with it?"

Cassidy was silent.

Munch continued, more gently this time. "Look, Brian, maybe it's not as bad as it seems. But you're holding something back and your silence isn't doing you any favors. Come on. Come down to the station with me. There's still time to make things right."

The other man seemed to waver for a moment, his shoulders slackened, his face very young and very old all at once. Finally, he looked up, his expression not quite neutral, his eyes filled with a distinctly cornered look.

"You're forgetting I'm a cop too," he said, walking forward slowly. "And so I know that saying you can make things right is the biggest lie we tell."

He lunged towards him, quicker than Munch could have believed. He had just enough time to see the box cutter clenched in Cassidy's fist before it buried itself deep into his throat. He staggered back, clutching at his neck, falling to the ground. He tried to take a breath, to talk, to scream, but liquid was filling up his lungs, trickling from his mouth, pattering on the hardwood floor.

Cassidy had stumbled back against the wall, looking stunned at his own audacity, his hands clenching on empty air.

"It had to be you, didn't it?" he said numbly. "You had to be the one to come here, to - I'm sorry. God, I didn't mean - I didn't want any of this. For you, for Liv. I'm sorry. You deserved better."

Cassidy bent down and pulled out the knife, sending out a fresh gout of blood against Munch's fingers, though the flow seemed slower now, in whatever case. He reached out with his free hand, clutching weakly at Cassidy's arm, leaving dark red streaks on his shirtsleeve. He tried to speak again but only a bloody froth emerged. Cassidy jerked away quickly, as though he'd been burned.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, and his voice seemed to come from a great distance, filtered through a haze of white noise. The room seemed to be retreating, increasingly obscured by static waves of gray. The pain in his throat seemed to be fading as well. He tried once more to take a breath but the muscles in his chest refused to respond.

It was just as well, perhaps. For the first and last time in his life, John Munch was lost for words.

Full darkness came before he even closed his eyes.

* * *

Throughout the course of his long and occasionally odd career, Detective John Munch served under perhaps nine different supervisors, none of whom had ever managed to cure his staunch belief in the benefits of fashionable lateness. But an hour past the start of his shift, he was still failing to answer his phone, and the atmosphere in the squad room grew charged with palpable fear. Fin and Amanda dispatched to his home, while Amaro was told to stay on his own case, a date rape in Queens.

"It's just a precaution, anyway," Cragen said with forced lightheartedness. "He probably got sidetracked arguing with some subway bum about Area 51, and you can bet he'll get an ass reaming when he shows up."

Out loud, Amaro agreed, but privately he couldn't shake the sinking feeling they had walked this road before, shielding the knowledge of disaster deep beneath a layer of denial. Halfway through the drive to interview the bartender, he made a sharp right turn, speeding down a side street towards Olivia's apartment, a half-formed hunch floating in his mind.

The last visit from Olivia's old partner had weighed heavily on his mind the last couple days, and much as Munch denied it, it had clearly been on his as well. Four months ago, finding someone else immune to Cassidy's inexplicable ability to make people like him would have been worth a couple drinks. But he and Amaro had made an uneasy sort of peace in the past couple months, mostly to please Olivia. Once you'd stayed in a guy's home, you owed him at least the appearance of respect, no matter how you felt. The fact that he had ruthlessly upended Amaro's life without warning to score some minor points with a jury was water under the bridge, right? Sure.

But it was a quantum leap from thinking a guy was an asshole to thinking he was a criminal. Maybe Olivia's former partner could make that jump, maybe Elliot Stabler, with the grief in his eyes edging up on madness, could believe Cassidy could betray them this way. But not Amaro. Maybe he had his issues with Cassidy, but he trusted the judgment of the rest of the squad when they told him Cassidy was fundamentally good.

Then again, Barba couldn't stand the guy, and while Rollins had been friendly enough, she'd never liked Cassidy as much as the others. And she was the only other one on the squad who had never known the man before - even Fin had met him a decade ago through Munch. She was the only one not over the moon at the return of SVU's prodigal son, whose vision was unclouded by a the specter of a man fifteen years gone. No, she still watched him with caution, and her instincts were good. If she and Amaro had talked, if they'd bothered discussing Cassidy, what would she have said?

But she'd been distracted by her own problems lately, and beyond that, they'd never had the kind of casual intimacy required to gossip about a colleague's love life, always hot or cold, hostile or concerned. So they'd ignored it, minded their own business. And maybe, just maybe, that had been a mistake.

Cassidy's apartment building was almost eerily quiet as he walked through the halls, no murmur of voices or buzz of appliances to accompany the echoes of his footsteps on the floor. It occurred to him that his presence here was the result of an unspeakably poor decision. At best, he was wasting his time, shirking a case that deserved his time and attention. At worst, Munch could have run into trouble doing this exact thing, and now here was Amaro, no backup, no one in the world with a clue where he was. But before he could think better of it, he reached the apartment door.

He paused there, memory hitting him like a physical blow. He'd stood before this door for the first time only months ago, holding a bottle of champagne for Olivia's housewarming party. She'd been happy then, happy as anyone could have expected under the circumstances, anyway. And maybe his instincts had told him from that something was off about Cassidy, maybe he'd mistrusted him from the very start, but he'd tried let it go because Cassidy had made her happy, and Amaro had loved seeing Olivia come into work with light in her eyes instead of just tired determination.

It was easy to believe that if he waited here long enough, Olivia herself would open the door, greet him with her patient half smile. That she would laugh and tell him this was all a misunderstanding, that someone like her could never die, could never slip into the darkness with no one the wiser, leave an emptiness behind that wouldn't seem to fade.

He was tempted to just stand and wait. Instead, he knocked against the door with an open palm, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence. The other hand rested lightly on his gun.

"Hey, Cassidy. It's Amaro. I need to talk to you."

No reply. Not even a shifting from inside indicating someone had heard. And why would there be? It was 10 AM on a Wednesday. Cassidy would be at work, just like everyone else in this place. Just like Amaro should be.

He let out a frustrated breath, almost turning to go. But as he did, there seemed to be a smell in the air, a faint whiff of metal and decay, and another wave of foreboding washed over him, hard enough to rock him on his feet.

He tried the doorknob and was not quite surprised when it turned easily, the door swinging open on its own accord. He went inside.

For a moment, he thought he'd stepped back in time, walked into the crime scene at Olivia's old place again, possessions thrown about haphazardly, smears of blood on the rug. But boxes lay scattered about, a sign of hurried packing rather than meaningless destruction. And in the center of the room a crumpled form lay on the floor, framed in a pool of congealing red.

Amaro drew his gun in a single smooth motion, calling Munch's name, scanning the apartment. But even as he did, even as he bent down to check for a pulse, he knew he was once again far too late.


	8. Pandora's Box

An extra chapter this week, because this one is rather exposition-filled.

* * *

8\. Pandora's Box

Elliot didn't go to the funeral. He flatly refused to change into a suit or leave the house, until Kathy finally left without him, giving him a look of mixed sadness and reproach. After all, she had liked Munch. He had made her laugh, had been another occasional window into Elliot's work life, without any of the complications presented by his and Olivia's friendship. And Elliot had liked him too. It had been hard not to like Munch, with his easy humor and affable charm. A world where Munch would never again joke about his ex-wives or rant on about government surveillance was dark indeed.

But he still couldn't go to the funeral. He'd lost the right. After everything that happened, he couldn't bring himself to sit with all the innocent mourners knowing that two people - two friends - would still be alive had he just done things differently. If he'd just kept his mouth shut about Cassidy, Munch would be alive right now, blissfully unaware. They would have gotten around to investigating him eventually, when the leads had dried up enough for even the craziest ideas to hold sway. All Elliot had done was muddy the waters. And as for Olivia - well, if he'd still been her partner, none of this would have happened in the first place. He would have had her flick her lights the first night, wouldn't he? Because it was her nature to believe she was invulnerable, and his to remember that there was no such thing.

Alone in the house, he paced across the living room, six steps forward, six steps back. He ought to have felt some sense of vindication at this definitive proof of Cassidy's sins, but losing Munch had made that impossible. Besides, he still had to know why. He needed to understand how someone like Cassidy - who'd been a good cop, and a good man - could have gone wrong this way. He'd doubted they'd ever learn why from Cassidy himself. Killing a fellow officer was proof that he very much preferred death to capture.

What he wanted, he thought, still pacing, was to talk to someone who knew Cassidy in the interim. Who might understand what had turned the bright-eyed rookie into a murderer.

Then it hit him. He turned on his heel and rushed to the attic, pushing aside containers of old clothes and knickknacks before finding the box he wanted. He thumbed through several years of Christmas cards - Kathy tried to keep them in chronological order, but somehow things never worked out that way - before finally finding what he was looking for. An envelope with a return address, the card inside emblazoned with a picture of a dog with a Santa hat. He took the envelope but left the card in the box.

The address led him to an older neighborhood in Brooklyn, weathered brown apartments looming over the street. Elliot shifted into park next to the curb, then leaned back in his seat, hip deep in memory. A man named Frank Vittori lived here, Elliot's last partner before Olivia. He had also been Elliot's first partner as a detective, a lifetime ago. Elliot had joined SVU on his half-joking suggestion, partners again for Vittori's final six months. He'd moved to Florida with his wife shortly afterwards, but moved back after only a year, declaring that New York roaches were already past his size limit.

He'd also been the NYPD's equivalent of a social butterfly, with at least a nodding acquaintance with just about every cop in the precinct. He probably hadn't been close with Cassidy - too much of his career would have been after Vittori retired. But he'd know someone who did.

Elliot walked to the door, pressing the buzzer for 316. After a few moments, a voice spoke on the intercom.

"Who is it?"

"It's Elliot Stabler."

There was a long pause. Then -

"Well I'll be damned."

The door unlocked. The elevator was broken, so Elliot took the stairs, puffing slightly by the end.

_Too much time riding a desk,_ he thought wryly. At least all this running around chasing shadows was getting him to exercise again.

Vittori was waiting for him at the door, wearing a bemused expression.

"So it is you," he said, as Elliot approached. "Thought my ears were playing tricks on me again. How long has it been?"

"Too long."

Elliot looked him over with interest. While Vittori had hardly been a whale, he'd certainly been bulky, six foot two and wide, half fat, half muscle. He'd slimmed in the intervening years, and what was left filled out his face nicely. His hair had gone completely white (though still as thick as ever, Elliot noted with some envy), and he'd traded his thick moustache for a neatly trimmed beard. He moved with a surprising spryness too, perhaps due to the weight loss, or the years of lessened responsibility.

Finally, Elliot laughed. "God, you actually look younger."

Vittori chuckled, slapping him genially on the shoulder before heading inside. "A diet of red meat and whiskey, that's the key. I always told my wife, but she never believed me."

Elliot nodded, a little more soberly. Vittori's wife had died four years ago, cancer consuming her with stunning swiftness. Her funeral had been one of the last times he'd seen this man, looking oddly small and sunken in his dark suit, his eyes lost.

"How are you doing nowadays?"

"Oh, pretty well. Good days and bad. These old bones are holding up pretty well, all things considered."

"Good to hear."

Vittori headed to the fridge, opening it and tossing Elliot a can of beer before grabbing his own. "Drink up. You look like you need it."

Elliot eyed the can dubiously. "Isn't it a little early?"

"I'm retired. I can drink whenever the hell I want. Besides, I'm not the only one breaking traditions today. Isn't there a funeral you should be at?"

Elliot struggled to explain. "I couldn't make myself go. I mean, I worked with him - I liked him. I just -"

_\- caused his death._

The other man nodded with understanding. "Funerals get harder every year. Especially this last little while. I've been watching the news. All these deaths, resignations, police corruption - it's like the bad old days again." He looked up abruptly, his eyes sharp. "That cop who was killed a few weeks back - she was your partner once, wasn't she?"

Elliot nodded, his chest tight.

"Yeah, I remember you introduced us at Johnson's retirement dinner. She seemed like a good cop. Quite a looker, too."

"She was both." Elliot tried for a smile.

"It's a tragedy what happened." Vittori settled into his armchair with a sigh. "So what do you need, Elliot?"

"What?"

"What do you need? You came here to ask a favor, didn't you?"

He chuckled at Elliot's look of chagrin. "Come on, now, no one looks up an old geezer like me out of the blue unless they want something. I was your partner. I don't mind. Tell me what you need. I'll see what I can do."

Elliot nodded hesitantly. "You're right. I did want something. I was wondering if you knew anyone who worked with the undercover officers in Narcotics in the last fifteen years."

"That's after I retired," Vittori pointed out.

"Yeah, but you gossip more than a teenage girl." Elliot grinned a little. "When you were showing me the ropes, it was like you knew the whole damn force. Don't tell me you haven't kept up with things."

"Heh. You're not wrong. There's Will Delaney. He and I started about the same time. Retired a couple years back. But before he did, he worked as a handler for some of the undercovers there. Not sure how much help he'll be though. His arthritis is bad these days. Doesn't like visitors."

"Can you put me in contact with him? Tell me where to find him?"

Vittori gave him a slightly quizzical smile. "Sure I can. But why come to me? Doesn't the NYPD keep records anymore?"

"This isn't part of an investigation. I'm retired. You know Olivia was my partner. I'm just... looking into things for my own sake."

"Retired? You're too young to retire."

"I used to think so too."

His look was sympathetic. "Burned out?"

"Trouble with IAB." Elliot regretted the admission immediately. His old partner had been a straight shooter in a time where police corruption had been the norm. Admitting his own troubles with the law would be the fastest way to lose his respect.

But Vittori only laughed, as though he'd made a joke. "You? I can't imagine that."

"Yeah, well, you'd be the only one."

"Nah. I remember when you first started, you had a buzz cut and these big beefy arms. You'd walk into an interrogation room and suspects would just about shit themselves. But you never even raised your voice. Never thought you'd be one to get on IAB's bad side."

"I guess twelve years in SVU is enough to give anyone rage problems."

"That's why you're supposed to get out after two. Why'd you stay?"

Elliot shrugged. The two year advice had been nearly the last thing Frank Vittori had said to him as his partner. One week later, Olivia Benson had stepped out of a car to smile at him in the rain.

After another slight pause, Vittori sighed, then scribbled something down on a piece of notepad paper. "Here's the address. I'll give him a call to let him know you're coming. And Stabler?"

"Yeah?"

"The kid I met all those decades ago was a good cop. He knew the difference between right and wrong. Whatever it is you're doing now - make sure it's something that kid would have been okay with."

Elliot stood up to leave, shaking his head. "All I want is some answers."

"And if you find those answers, do you think it's going to be enough?"

"What, you don't trust me?" he asked, his voice falsely light.

Vittori was watching him closely. "I think once you've spent enough time sorting out shades of gray, it's easy to lose sight of where the line is sometimes. But there is a line, Elliot. There always is. So you want answers. What are you going to do with them? You can't peek in Pandora's Box and then slam it shut again. Sometimes it's better to let the dead lie."

They paused at the entrance, Vittori's handshake a little less firm than Elliot remembered. An old man's tremulous grip, not a veteran cop's solid grasp. "It's good to see you again, Stabler. Drop by again if you have the time."

He closed the door.

* * *

Will Delaney lived in a nursing home near Brooklyn, the wood facade sagging, the walls a depressing faded yellow. A harried-looking nurse directed him to a small second floor balcony, where Delaney sat in the shade on a wheelchair, smoking a cigarette, glaring at Elliot as he approached.

If Frank Vittori looked ten years younger than his age, this man looked ten years older. Folds of sagging skin hung off his brittle frame, deep purple bags lingered beneath his eyes, capped off by a rasping smoker's cough. He glared at Elliot as he approached, his eyes sunken in his head.

"Don't you assholes ever talk to each other? Three detectives came by last week alone. I haven't thought of anything new since then."

Elliot gave up on trying to explain he wasn't a cop.

"This is... sort of an unofficial thing, okay? I just need you to tell everything to me again."

Delaney squinted at him.

"Vittori said your last name was Stabler... Any relation to Joe Stabler by any chance?"

"Yeah. He was my father."

Delaney's shoulders seemed to relax a little. "Thought you looked familiar. I knew him, back in the day. He was a good man."

"Some people think so."

"All right then, Joe Stabler's son, what is it that you want to know?"

"I want you to tell me what you know about Brian Cassidy. What he did, what he was like when you knew him."

"And like I said to the other cops, there's not much to tell. He worked hard but kept to himself. Never made any huge busts until Ganzel, but he was probably about average. He was drinking buddies with a lot of the guys, but I don't remember anyone he was really close to. Just about average in every way. If you'd told me a cop under my watch would go native, I wouldn't have guessed him."

Elliot frowned. "Go native?"

"It's when a cop spends too much time undercover, starts sympathizing with the guys he's supposed to be arresting. It's not as rare as you think"

"You think that's what happened?"

"What else could it be? Except..."

"Except?"

"Well, most of the groups he was undercover with are gone, one way or another. We busted Ganzel pretty thoroughly. The first gang Cassidy was with got wiped out in some turf war before we even got around to making arrests. A couple other small time guys are still in jail and their groups fell apart without them. Maybe he went native, but who did he go native _with?_"

Elliot leaned forward. "Look, is there anything else you can tell me? Anything that might have been overlooked, left out of the official report? Off the record."

"On the record, off the record, it doesn't matter. I told you, I don't know anything else."

"There has to be something. Anything. No matter how small. If you don't want to tell the PD you can tell me. I'm Joe Stabler's son, remember?"

Delaney hesitated for the longest time. "It might be nothing," he said finally. "It was just a small thing."

"What is it?"

"He broke his hand."

Elliot frowned. "What?"

"Six months into his first assignment, he reported in with his hand in a cast. Said he'd dropped a box on it while helping them move equipment. But it sounded fishy. I always suspected he'd gotten into a fight, or did a bit of face breaking he didn't want to tell us about. But I told his handler to keep it off the books. We'd been having trouble with IAB back then. Didn't need them nosing around even more."

"That's it?" Elliot couldn't suppress a twinge of disappointment. "You don't know anything else about it?"

"Hell, maybe he did just drop a box. There was nothing to suggest anything else. He kept his head down, did his job without complaining for the rest of my years there. Nothing ever made me think he was dirty."

"Right," Elliot sighed and turned to leave. "Thanks for your time."

"Stabler." Elliot paused in the doorway and looked back. Delaney stared at him, the dim light deepening the shadows around his eyes. "Back in my day, we'd never have let this stand. We took care of our own. By whatever means necessary."

Elliot smiled stiffly. "Times have changed. The rules are for everyone now."

"Things don't look so different from where I sit." He paused, coughing again, his whole body shaking. When he looked back up, his eyes were darker and more focused than Elliot had seen them so far, as though he was seeing a different time, watching a different man. "You've let a cop killer walk free for weeks now, and now you have a second, who's a turncoat to boot. What are you going to do about it, Stabler?"

"Thanks for your help," Elliot said calmly. He walked away without turning back.


	9. The Center Cannot Hold

9\. The Center Cannot Hold

There was a distinctly somber air to the squad room when Elliot returned, a week after Munch's funeral. Amaro was bent over his desk, doing his paperwork more forcefully than necessary as Cragen sat across from the blonde detective, speaking quietly. He thought it was purely grief at the loss of two colleagues until Fin saw him and walked over, showing no hint of surprise at his presence.

"You're timing's as on point as ever," he said, giving his hand a perfunctory shake.

"What makes you say that?"

"The captain's resigning."

Elliot's stunned gaze met Cragen's, who looked back at him with weary acknowledgement. His eyes fell on details he'd overlooked before, the empty office in the back of the squad room, the box of photos and plaques on the floor.

"What? You can't." SVU without Cragen was unimaginable, an impossibility.

Cragen shook his head, standing up slowly and walking over. "I can and I am. It was nearly time, anyway. I was hoping to go out on a better note than this, but..." he shrugged. "Things don't always work out that way."

"But why?"

"Too old, too tired, made too many mistakes. When you're in the swing of things, it's easy to think you can keep going forever. But eventually you find out that you can't."

"You can't think what happened with Lewis and Cassidy was your fault. It's not."

"Some of it was pure bad luck, true. Other parts were a failure of leadership. There were things I should have done, steps I should have taken. And I would have thought my detectives - both present and former - might have trusted me enough come to me with any suspicions they had, rather than go haring off on their own."

Amaro's stricken look matched his own.

"Look, Captain, I didn't -"

"It was my fault, I was -"

Cragen held up his hands to forestall their protests. "I don't say this to accuse you or blame you. I just hope that if there's one thing I can leave you with, it's the idea that you can't always do this alone. There's a reason we have partners and squads.

"I hired each and every one of you because I thought you were exceptional. I've always tried to give you free rein. But there's a flip side to that. Sometimes there are reasons why things are done a certain way, and you've all gotten too used to ignoring them. I have no authority over any of you anymore. But I hope if it ever comes down to it, you'll remember the oaths you took."

He was looking at Elliot as he spoke, and Elliot found he couldn't return the gaze.

Cragen nodded at them, then bent down, picking up his box of possessions. A somehow meager summation of all his years of service. "I'll be off then. Good luck to all of you. Don't go running off trying to get a cake or anything. You know how I hate fuss."

Amaro stepped forward, then hesitated. "Do you need any help?"

Cragen's smile was wry. "I can make it. I'm not quite that old yet. Perhaps I'll still see some of you around."

They all watched him leave, silently, as though at a wake. After the door had closed, Fin let out a sigh.

"Once things settle down, I might leave too," he said, staring out tiredly over the squad room. "Maybe you had the right of it. We've been here too long. It's time for something different."

Elliot shook his head. "That's not why I left."

"Maybe it should have been. It's better to leave when you still have something left to give. Better than hanging on until your fingers are worn to the bone."

"It's not all bad news." Amaro walked over, leaned against the desk. "Ed Tucker is leaving too. It's not voluntary."

"What? Why?"

"He gave Cassidy back his shield, didn't he? They're calling it a big lapse in judgment. Since they still haven't caught anyone, I guess the brass are looking for a scapegoat." There was a distinct glint of satisfaction in Amaro's eyes. "I won't say it's right, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

Elliot frowned a little and excused himself, walking out the door and to the elevator before he could think better of it.

As he walked down the hall, the thought occurred to him that he'd been spending practically more time in the IAB squad room than SVU's of late. The place was far from deserted as he entered, nearly every desk occupied, a low buzz of conversation permeating the room. The faces here looked no happier than the ones at SVU. It hadn't occurred to him that anyone would mourn the loss of Tucker, but of course these men would. He'd been their mentor, their leader, just as Cragen had been to SVU. His loss would mark change and uncertainty for IAB, and perhaps even the entire precinct.

Elliot strode past the desks with no acknowledgement of the odd looks he received, his eyes on the gray-haired figure in the larger office, who was leaning over a box of his own, head bowed, weariness in his shoulders. He looked up as Elliot entered, eyebrows raised.

"Stabler. Long time no see." His lip curled slightly as he spoke, as though he wanted to follow up the greeting with the usual insults. But he turned away instead, the lines around his eyes more prominent than they'd ever been.

"Sergeant Tucker," he said, his voice neutral.

A tense moment stretched between them. Finally Tucker sighed and looked up from the boxes on his desk.

"What do you want, Stabler? Here to gloat?"

" I'm not up to gloating right now. Even about you."

"Understandable. I know it doesn't mean much, coming from me, but I'm sorry about Munch. And Benson. She had her problems, but her heart was always in the right place."

It was the closest Tucker ever got to a compliment, and Elliot nodded, accepting it for the peace offering it was.

"Look, I'm not your biggest fan, but it's not right that they're forcing you out over Cassidy. I mean, God, no one saw that one coming."

Tucker gave him a wry echo of a smile. "When you spend your career making enemies instead of friends, you don't survive your first real scandal. I think you might know something about that. Besides, it's IAB's job to foresee this sort of thing, and I did the opposite. I brought him back as a detective against the judgment of my superiors. I thought... I thought he seemed like a man who deserved a second chance. No history of complaints, no real marks on his record except the one. Yet here we are."

"I knew him, fifteen years back. Would have never dreamed he'd be capable of anything like this."

"People always surprise you, usually for the worse. That's what I learned from this job. Now, if you're not here to dance on my grave, feel like telling me why you stopped by? I doubt it's for the pleasure of my company."

"Cassidy. He said he was undercover during that weekend, and you guys backed him up. Where was he supposed to be?"

Tucker's stern look verged on a glare. "That's privileged information. Part of an ongoing investigation."

"What, even now?"

"Investigations don't disappear when a detective goes rogue. Besides, you're barking up the wrong tree. No one here covered for him. It wasn't a supervised operation, and we managed to glean from the target that Cassidy just called up and told him he'd be late. He still went. The alibi was sound - just didn't cover the whole weekend."

"Look, if you just give me a name..."

"Not a chance. And how is it your business, Stabler? Last I checked, you're not a cop anymore. Thinking you're going to catch him yourself? Thinking you'll get to the guy first when the whole of the NYPD is baying for his blood? That's pretty arrogant, even for you."

Elliot clenched his fists and took a breath, carefully reining in his temper. "I'm just looking for a couple answers for myself," he said, his voice almost mild. "I'm not interfering with the investigation, and I'm happy to let justice take its course."

"Bullshit. I know that look. Right now you're thinking about tracking both him and William Lewis down and caving in their skulls with your fists. And I understand that, believe me, I do. But you need to drop it now. Stop pretending that all this snooping around is just for fun. Go home, hug your family, and mourn your partner. Let it go."

He slammed a book into a box harder than necessary, then walked over until he was nearly eye to eye with Elliot. "Now that neither of us are cops anymore, I'll tell you this. I was always sure you'd be the one to go rogue. I spent the last decade waiting for that call. But it never came. You toed the line more than any cop has the right to, but you never stepped over. Even with your last shoot, there was at least an imminent threat. But what you're thinking about now betrays everything you stood for when you wore that badge, destroys everything that separates you from the men you used to catch. You walked out with some of your honor intact. Leave it that way."

Elliot narrowed his eyes. "I'll bear that in mind," he said coolly.

"I hope so. Are we done?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Then get out of my office. I've got packing to do."

Elliot left. And for a while, he truly believed he could let things stand. He went home, ate dinner, kissed Kathy and Eli goodnight. Went to work the next day, came home and did it all again. Olivia screamed in his dreams when he slept, her voice ragged with pain. Sometimes Munch was there too, his mouth moving as though to speak but only thick dark blood came out, dripping down his chin, staining his suit. Elliot bore these with the patience of a man accepting his just punishment. The dreams would pass with time. They had before.

Only Jenna Fox had returned too, watching him in the daylight hours, her eyes wide and unhappy, her shirt dripping blood. He came home one day and the house was like a scene from a nightmare, blood everywhere, dripping down from spray patterns on the walls, pooling outward from puddles on the floor. The living room smelled like rust as crimson smeared against his shoes, and no matter how he told himself it wasn't real, he couldn't quite believe it. He made a beeline for the cleaning supplies, frantic to clean up the mess, to hide the evidence before Kathy came home to see. He was halfway through the first puddle before he stopped, gripping the brush as he tried to get a hold of himself.

He turned to look at the girl as she stood silently in the living room, staining Eli's picture books red.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Believe me, I'm sorry."

She looked past him, staring hatred at three men long dead, clumsily clutching the grip of a gun too big for her small hands.

"It was so easy," she whispered, and Elliot closed his eyes, clutching his head until she went away. Cassidy and Lewis would be caught, and then all of this would stop. It had to.

"Please," he added out loud, but he got no real reply. Only the echo of Jenna Fox's dying words.

"_It was so easy._"


	10. Crossroads

Another extra update because we're getting close to the important bits, I think.

* * *

10\. Crossroads

Two weeks later, Elliot waited for Amaro at Flannery's - a cop bar, more for its proximity to the precinct than the strength of its drinks. He hadn't been here in three years. He and Olivia had come here all the time when they were partners, to mull over a case or shoot the breeze. It hadn't changed much in the interim. Even most of the faces were the same, the mood still tired and boisterous.

He sat down at the counter and ordered a beer, nursing it slowly. Ten minutes later, Amaro walked in, sitting down with a huff beside him.

"Sorry I'm late. Got caught up in a last minute meeting with the brass."

"No problem. Thanks for meeting me. Appreciate it." And he did. Amaro looked like the only man in New York who might be sleeping less than Elliot these days. "Can I get you anything?"

"No thanks."

"Come on," he persisted. "I dragged you out here. I owe you something."

Amaro shrugged. "A Coke, then."

"Going back to work after this?"

"No. I don't drink anymore."

"Oh." Elliot immediately felt awkward. "I didn't know. We didn't have to meet here."

"I'm not an alcoholic. It's just -" He sighed. "It's a long story."

"Okay." Elliot decided not to pry. He ordered the drink and they sat in silence. The bartender pushed the glass across the table, and Amaro took a sip without much enthusiasm.

"So what was the meeting about? Is there a change in the case?"

Amaro's face tightened, and he looked away. "You could say that. They're giving Olivia's case to Major Case. With Homicide working Munch's case, we've been pushed out of both."

"Oh." Elliot felt a sudden surge of pity. "Well, you're down half your squad. They probably thought you couldn't handle the workload."

"That's the official reason," Amaro agreed. "Unofficially... everyone knows we screwed up. The answer was right in front of us the whole time, and we looked past it. The boyfriend is the _first_ person you're supposed to check..."

"Any other squad might have had the same problem. No one thought it was Cassidy. He was too good of a liar."

The other man's smile was wry. "You did. Straight off."

Elliot shook his head. "I didn't. Munch was right. I was an asshole to all of Olivia's boyfriends. Raked plenty of great guys over the coals for no good reason. The fact that something was actually wrong this time was just a coincidence."

Amaro stared hard at him for a moment, a question in his face. Then he looked away with a shrug. "Like I said, Major Case is working her case now. If you want to know anything after today, you'll have to ask them. But I can tell you what I know right now.

"I was just wondering if you guys made any progress. No one's said anything about it on the news in a while. Are you any closer to finding anyone?"

Amaro closed his eyes. "Are we making progress? Sure. We're pretty sure neither of them are anywhere near New York anymore. Are we close to finding them?" He clenched his fist around the glass. "No. It's like they disappeared. And that shouldn't be possible. They shouldn't have the resources to stay under the radar like this. Not by themselves."

Elliot nodded. "You're thinking organized crime."

"Has to be. But who or why, we have no idea. Olivia had a run in with a gang this year, DX9, and we thought they could have gotten involved. But it's not them. They don't have the smarts or the resources. That leaves someone in Cassidy's circles."

"That's progress."

"Not much. You know, Cassidy told me once that we both worked in the same small world when we were undercover. He just made more friends. And I guess he was right. We're trying to figure out what contacts he made while he was working, but it's hard, and no one's talking." He clenched his fists, the skin whitening around the knuckles. "He gave us so many hints and we ignored them all."

"Hey man, you can't blame yourself."

His smile was tired and cynical. "Because you're not? You're not spending your nights wondering what you could have done to stop this?"

Elliot looked down and said nothing.

"I miss her," Amaro said suddenly. He tilted his head to stare at the ceiling, but not quickly enough to hide the sheen of tears in his eyes. "I keep thinking if she were here, she'd see something we're missing, or coax someone into talking. And now Munch is gone too. It's like everything is falling apart."

"I know the feeling."

He studied Amaro for a moment, noting the ragged look in his eyes, how much thinner he'd gotten in the course of mere weeks. It was times like these that Elliot didn't miss his old job in the least, with its endless grind of unanswerable questions and the relentless pressure for results. His own role as ad-hoc investigator was over now. The real detectives would have spoken to everyone he had and more - and probably done a more thorough job too. There was nothing left for him to do but wait.

However, there was one bit of information that they might not know, one crucial connection that a bitter prostitute might let slip to a rogue ex-cop, but never to the official investigation. Heather Riggs and Cassidy had both known Lewis. She'd known more than she ever let on, maybe even knew who Cassidy answered to. But to tell Amaro this would be betraying the trust of a girl who'd been let down too many times in her life. SVU had betrayed Heather Riggs before because they'd been too much on Cassidy's side. Would Elliot do the same for the sake of Olivia? She'd certainly never ask it of him.

Still, if it helped find Olivia's killer...

"Hey, listen," he said. "When I -"

Elliot's phone buzzed. He frowned, reaching for it. It was coming from the wrong pocket, the sound tinnier than usual. Then he remembered. The burner phone. And only one person had the number.

He stood up quickly. "Sorry, I have to take this," he said, already heading towards the door as Amaro shrugged and nodded.

Outside, he flipped open the phone, speaking quietly. "Yeah?"

"You really aren't a cop," Heather Riggs said, without preamble.

"Yeah. What made you believe me?"

"The real cops came. Asked me a bunch of stupid questions that you already asked me."

"And did you answer?"

"What do you think?"

He sighed. "So what are you calling me for?"

"Got some information for you, but I won't tell you if you're going to be an asshole."

"Sorry," he said. "It's a character flaw. I'm working on it."

She let out a huff of brittle laughter. "Do you have something to write with?"

"Sure."

She gave him a number, street, and area code. Elliot wrote it down automatically on a scrap of napkin, before stopping and frowning at it.

"What's this supposed to be?"

"It's an address. To a house in Nevada."

"And what's in this house, exactly?"

"If you're lucky, William Lewis."

There was a long pause. Finally, Elliot let out a breath and put away his pen.

"Look, this isn't a great time for jokes -"

"This isn't a joke," she said, an unmistakable tone of smugness in her voice. "See, men talk in front of people like me. I guess when all the blood's in the wrong head, people get chatty. And we got some important visitors last night. Kept complaining how dangerous it was to let such a high profile criminal use the safe houses. After a bit of persuading, I got one of them to tell me more."

"What makes you think they were talking about Lewis?"

She let out a breathy chuckle. "Figure it out, Mr. 'I'm Not a Cop.' It's not that hard."

"You and Cassidy have the same boss," Elliot said slowly. "And Andre LaRouche too. That's why he stopped talking when he realized I was asking about Cassidy."

"Poor Andre," she said, with a laugh, no trace of sympathy in her voice. "Only an idiot thinks he can steal from a crime lord and not pay for it. He should be grateful Cassidy put him in jail instead of putting a bullet in his head. Of course, none of us knew he was a cop back then. Thought he was just another thug. And really, no one knew how ruthless..." she trailed off

"Who was ruthless? Cassidy?"

"No," she said softly. "Not Cassidy."

"Just give me a name," Elliot said, matching her tone. "Tell me who you work for. I'll protect you. I promise."

The click of the call ending was his only reply. Slowly, he slipped the phone back into his pocket. There was no room for guilt over almost betraying his promise. He only felt dazed, felt anticipation warring with disbelief. He returned to his seat, trying to steady his hands, clear his expression. Amaro was watching him.

"What was that about?"

Elliot opened his mouth, about to tell Amaro about the address. But something stopped him. "Oh..." He paused. "Nothing. Just a work thing."

Nick nodded at him, his eyes a little too knowing. "I see you still use a flip phone."

"Guess I'm just old fashioned."

"Sure. So what were you saying earlier?"

"I uh -" Elliot grinned just a little too widely. "You know? I completely forgot. It wasn't really important."

Amaro's stare was unnerving. "Okay."

Elliot cast about for a change of subject. "How's the new captain?"

Finally, the other man looked away. "An asshole. But I guess we deserve him, with how much we screwed up."

"Most captains are assholes. We just got lucky with Cragen."

"And look how we repaid him."

Abruptly, Elliot couldn't stay any longer. Heather Riggs's phone call felt like a fire in his brain, the knowledge consuming everything in its path. He needed to stop, to think, to consider. Leaving so soon after the call, especially when he'd asked Amaro to come and meet him would be suspicious. But he couldn't stay.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I need -"

Amaro waved him off. "Go. I don't mind."

"I'm sorry that I -"

"I said, it's fine." He stared at the glasses behind the counter, his eyes dark. "I needed the break, anyway. I'm going to stay a little longer. Try to forget I still have to go back tomorrow."

Elliot opened his mouth, then shut it again. A better man than him would have something to say. Some bit of wisdom, advice. After all, Elliot had sat in that same chair a dozen times, contemplating the future with the same grimness after a hard case. So had Olivia. He'd told her early on that the difference between her and the victims was that she could walk away. But he couldn't say that to Amaro. He wasn't sure that it was true anymore. Sometimes walking away just made things worse.

And whatever Amaro decided, he could hardly screw up worse than Elliot at this point.

So he left.

xxx

Halfway home, Elliot calmed down enough to wonder why he'd bothered holding back. If he'd been told Lewis was still in New York, things might be different, but Nevada may as well have been on a different planet.

It wasn't a matter of money. The paperwork for Olivia's will had finally gone through, only a couple days ago. If she hadn't left him everything, it had been very near. Life insurance, savings - there had been enough that a last minute plane ticket across the country wouldn't make much of a dent. He hadn't even told Kathy yet, unsure if he could keep it. It was too much like blood money, like profiting from death. But what could be a more appropriate use of these funds than to go and track down her killer?

_She wouldn't want you to._

Well, he didn't know that for sure. While Olivia had never crossed the line as much as he had, she'd certainly had her own rather pointed ideas of justice. Who was to say that she wouldn't think a man like William Lewis deserved everything that was coming to him?

_She wouldn't want it for your sake, not his._

That was true. And he couldn't, either way. He had too many responsibilities, too many things tying him down to go tearing across the country on a wild goose chase. Even if he did, what was he planning to do? He'd decided two years ago that - justified or not - he had enough blood on his hands.

"I'm not a murderer," he said aloud.

Somewhere in his head, Jenna Fox disagreed.

He finally parked in his driveway, turning off his headlights. He sat still for a moment in the dying light of the sun for a moment, letting his emotions settle before stepping outside. He walked up to the door and paused, unable to continue. Somewhere behind him in the house, Eli was giggling as Kathy spoke gently, still as patient with her fifth as she had been with her first.

He didn't believe in signs. He hadn't for years, partly because Kathy's mother was just a little too fond of them, insisting that every mundane flicker of light was a message from God that she ought to do whatever she had already been planning to do. Still, today had been strange enough to shake the staunchest of skeptics. But if that phone call was a sign, he was pretty sure it wasn't from God.

He was pretty sure God wouldn't be too happy with what he was thinking about now.

He closed his eyes and fished his normal phone from his pocket without looking. Before he could stop himself, he found himself dialing the number for Ray Wilson, his old friend and current boss. He listened to the phone ring, his mind oddly blank.

Ray answered after a couple moments with his usual cheer. "Hey, Elliot. What's up?"

"Hey. I'm sorry for the short notice, but I really need tomorrow and next week off."

There was hesitation in the other man's voice. "Gee, Elliot, it's not a good time for it. You know how busy we've been."

"I know. I'm sorry. Family emergency."

There was a long silence from the other end, as though Wilson were waiting for him to elaborate. He didn't. The more lies he told now, the more he'd have to keep track of later. And if the answer was no, that was okay, that was good even. A solid roadblock to the idea screaming in the shadowy recesses of his mind.

"Well... I guess I could cover you for a week. It's really serious?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry to hear that. If you need anything else, give me a call."

"Thanks."

Elliot waited until he heard the click of the line disconnecting. Work had never been a real barrier to what he was thinking of doing. Perhaps Olivia could talk him out of it, but she was gone. There was only himself now, and he wasn't sure that was enough.

He slipped the phone into his pocket and rested his head in his hands for a moment, leaning against the door jamb. There were a thousand roads to hell, and few were truly paved with good intentions. More often they were smooth paths on a rolling plain, a tempting break from the rigors of the high road. But it was all too easy to take just a few steps down and look back, only to find the high road had disappeared into the mist. And with everything falling into place so easily, it would be remiss of him not to take a moment to watch where he was headed.

He could call Amaro right now, tell him what he'd learned. If the information was right - and he had a feeling it was - the kid would probably get a promotion out of it. And he liked Amaro, he did. He had a seriousness that matched Olivia's, a sincerity that made him easy to trust. He could call him, give him the information, and let the police do their work. He would still take the week off, use the time to process, to grieve, burn the final ties to his past life. Close the door on this forever. For real this time.

Or... he could pursue it himself. Book a round trip ticket to Nevada - just for a week. If he couldn't find Lewis in that time, he'd come home, let it drop. But if he did...

Quashing the thought, he turned the key and went inside.


	11. Sins of the Father

11\. Sins of the Father

The evening dragged on endlessly. It was hard to focus, Olivia's face lingering in Elliot's mind. William Lewis's too, his smiling mug shot standing out more clearly in his memories than most of the real faces he'd seen of late. He followed his routine as best he could, trying to nod and smile at the right time, doing his share of the housework on muscle memory alone.

He thought he'd done a passable job of acting normal, until he looked up to see Kathy watching him solemnly from across the room, a piece of a jigsaw puzzle held between her slender fingers. A two-thirds completed picture of mourning doves this time.

"Everything okay?"

"Fine," he said, his voice falsely bright.

"You shouldn't be," she pointed out. "Two of your closest friends died in the last month. I haven't seen you grieve at all, except to act out at the funeral."

He shrugged. "I hadn't seen them in three years," he managed. "Everyone deals with things in a different way. I'm okay."

There was silence for a long time, and Elliot thought she'd gone back to her work. Then she spoke again, bitterness tinting her words.

"You still won't talk to me, will you? Even after all that's happened, even after all these years, you never tell me what's on your mind."

"Kathy - "

"No. Don't start." There was no anger in her voice. Only sadness. "I know that's the kind of thing you used to tell Olivia. But she's gone now, and I find out that I'm not even your second choice."

"That's not true."

She ignored him. "I would have been well within my rights to hate her, I think. But I didn't. She was hard to hate. Half the time it was like she was trying out for sainthood. The other half... well, I knew you two never did anything technically improper. And it would be terrible to hate the woman who saved your child's life, even if your husband looked at her in a way that he never looked at you. I tried to accept that it was just the way things were.

"When you finally left your job, I couldn't help but be happy. I knew it was hard for you, I knew it wasn't what you wanted. But I thought things could finally change, that things could go back to the way they were. That you'd eventually stop feeling like you had to hide half of yourself from your family. But it never happened. Three years on and you still can't be honest with me."

Elliot felt a biting sense of shame, but he buried it beneath a flood of rage.

_You want some honesty?_ he wanted to scream. _You married a monster. I murdered a girl younger than Lizzie is now. I shot her on the worst day of her life and watched her bleed out in front of me, and now I think I'm going to murder someone else too. I'm going to kill a man in the worst way I can imagine, because I want to, because it's just the way I am._

With an effort, he calmed himself. It would be incredibly unfair to take his problems out on her. He'd been doing too much of that already.

"It's just not something I want to talk about, okay?" he said. "I'm sorry."

Her expression didn't change. "And if it had been me? If it had been my funeral all those weeks ago? Would you have talked to her? Would you have driven to her apartment in middle of the night? Cried on her shoulder? Talked about our ups and downs, our fights and our laughter? We both know you would. But we've been married most of our lives now, and you still won't talk to me."

Elliot stared at her, his throat working. He tried to find a denial, to find the words to talk her down, make things better. But nothing came.

The silence went on too long and Kathy's mouth twisted wryly. "That's about what I thought." She stood up. "I'm going to bed. If you ever decide you want a marriage in more than just name, let me know."

She was almost at the stairs when Elliot spoke again, his voice halting. "But I chose you. I know - I know I haven't always been a great husband. A lot of the time I haven't even been a good one. But I always fought to keep our family together."

She turned to look at him, and the sadness was still dark in her eyes. "Did you really choose me? When you spent the last three years moping around the house, going through the motions? I won't say I felt like a burden, but I certainly felt like a duty."

"I - "

"When I left you all those years ago, I was angry, and I wanted you to be angry too. But part of me thought that maybe I was setting you free. That maybe it would finally let you find whatever it was you were looking for. Sometimes I wonder why you didn't just take the chance. That's your problem, Elliot. You can never let things go."

With that, she turned away and kept walking.

Elliot waited a long time before heading upstairs. Kathy was already in bed, turned towards the wall, eyes closed, but the tension in her body told him she was awake. He said nothing and went to the bathroom, undressing and then brushing his teeth with a probably unnecessary degree of meticulousness. He finally emerged back into the bedroom with an apology on his lips, maybe even an explanation, a confession. But her false sleep had drifted into a real one, her breathing deep and even.

Elliot stared at her for several moments, grief rising in his throat. The soft lamplight smoothed the tiny lines on her face, bringing back an echo of the girl she'd been.

_Your life would be better if you'd never met me._

The thought came without any sense of chest-beating or self-flagellation, as a flat, calm statement of truth. Kathy would have been happier if they'd never made a life together, if in that fateful night at the party all those years ago, their eyes had met and they'd both simply kept on walking. He hadn't deserved either woman in his life. He'd betrayed them both, one in thought and one in action.

And now he would betray them again, one final time. He would leave tonight to hunt down Lewis and kill him, he knew that for sure now. The first police commissioner could descend down from on high in a Greek toga to tell him to turn back, and he would shove him aside and continue. He'd sought this from the very beginning, ever since he'd seen Olivia's unnatural stillness in the morgue, perhaps even since those early summer days one year past, where he had seen the story of an abduction on the news and had forced himself to turn away.

He had spent three years trying to change himself, to make himself better, but perhaps all his years as a cop should have taught him better, taught him how rare or mythical true change really was. He'd seen hundreds of junkies or prostitutes promise to change as their voices trembled with emotion, as they swore they would better themselves, that they would get clean, make a different life. But most of the time, he knew they would be back to the same patterns within the month. He'd known it with the same certainty that Tucker had known that Elliot would one day go rogue, would stand before him disgraced.

Because ultimately, after all this time, Elliot was still the same man. A man who would kill anyone who hurt his partner. And that's what he intended to do.

He found his gym bag and emptied it out, then walked to the closet on silent feet. He grabbed some clothing, shoving it inside with no regard for neatness or wrinkles. He flicked off the lamp with a single delicate motion, then slipped out of the darkened bedroom without a sound.

He paused in front of Eli's room, heading inside with silent footsteps. His son was sprawled on his stomach across his blue sheets, his blankets already hopelessly tangled. If there could only be one reason this was a terrible idea, it was encapsulated in this single image of his child, sleeping peacefully in the faint moonlight. His duty to his children trumped everything else that he might want or need. Especially to Eli, who had yet to experience real pain or loss, who was light years from understanding rage or injustice, or that he lived in a world where good people could live alone and die in pain. Anything that could hurt his children should have been off limits, and this would definitely qualify. But yet...

He reached down, ruffling the boy's hair, and Eli shifted, muttering in his sleep.

"Be good," he whispered. "I'll see you in a bit."

Out in the living room, he chanced turning on a small lamp. He turned his phone on silent, hiding it below the laundry hamper. It would only be a hindrance where he was going - the GPS would give him away. He sat down on the arm of the couch, staring at nothing for a long time, before finally dialing his number with their landline, listening to his own voice on voicemail before speaking quietly.

"Kathy. You were right, what you said earlier. I haven't been dealing very well with... everything that's happening. I'm sorry. I need a couple of days - a week - to think things through, work things out. After that, we'll make a new start. I'll make things up to you, I swear. Love you."

He hung up the phone and stared at it for a while. She deserved better. But he couldn't find the words somehow. It would be enough to keep her from calling the police to report him missing, though he wouldn't be surprised if he returned to find the locks changed. It would be ironic, having finally irrevocably lost Olivia, if he lost Kathy now too. He'd deserve it, certainly. But he suspected their marriage would survive, that their relationship would only fracture, not shatter. Decades of comfortable inertia was hard to break - they'd learned that last time.

In any case, he found it difficult to worry about the consequences right now, with his head throbbing with reckless anticipation, his blood rushing hotly through his veins. He thought he'd dealt with his rage issues, he thought that two years away from the darkness of SVU had cooled his temper, but it had been there all along, roiling beneath the surface. A part of him reveled in it.

The sound of the garage door opening was agonizingly loud in the silence, but neither Kathy nor Eli stirred, and he threw his bag in the back seat before heading to the driver's side.

Olivia was waiting for him as he got in the car, her hair cropped short, wearing a blue shirt, too thick for the weather. "This is insane," she said without preamble.

He grinned a little, staring at the dashboard. "No. You wanna know what's insane? This. This conversation I'm having with you right here. Compared to that, the plan is pretty reasonable."

"I don't think you know what 'reasonable' means anymore. This guy's dangerous. You know nothing about where he is, who he might be with. You won't even have a gun. You can't do this to your family. You think it's right to make Eli grow up without a father? Visiting a grave, or prison? You think it's okay to let Kathy raise him by herself, the ex-wife of a murderer?"

"That'll only happen if I get caught. And I have no intention of being caught."

"I'd put the odds that the woman is just jerking you around at a million to one. Even if she really found out where Lewis is somehow, telling you could get her killed. I doubt she'd take that kind of risk"

"She's not lying."

"What makes you so sure?"

Elliot considered a long time before answering. "When I met her, I thought she seemed like someone who never had much control in her life. Things always happened to her, and she couldn't do much about it. But now she's sending an ex-cop halfway across the country to kill a man she hates. That's power."

"I think she expected you to tell the police. Wasting lots of government time and money is power too."

"You just don't like her. And speaking of which - " He turned to her with a frown. "What's this I hear about blackmailing a potential rape victim? Is that really the kind of thing that goes down at the precinct nowadays?"

She finally had the courtesy to look away. "You weren't there," she murmured. "It was a weak case - with a pretty obvious motive for a set up. If it were up to us, we never would have brought it to trial. The DA pushed it through because he was trying to make a name for himself."

"It was strong enough that you felt you couldn't just let the jury acquit him. I never thought you'd stand for something like this."

She glared at him. "I trusted Cassidy. I wanted to help him. I would have done the same for you."

"I don't remember you blackmailing Warner to change her report when it looked like I was going to go down for murder."

"We got carried away," she admitted, closing her eyes. "Cassidy was a guy who was easy to get carried away with. He puts on this face for the world like he doesn't care, like he just floats along. But sometimes he'd look at me like there was no one else in the world. And I wanted that, you know? I spent my whole life being second. I wanted something in my life that was just for me."

She sighed, a slumped silhouette in the shadows of the car. "How did we all end up here, do you think? How did we go wrong?"

"We lost faith," Elliot said quietly. "We stopped believing that if we played by the rules and did the right thing, things would turn out well in the end. And maybe it's not true. Hell, even kids know it's not true. But to be a good cop, you still have to pretend it is. Because when you decide that your own justice is better than everyone else's, you only make things worse. I learned that from watching my father. I used to tell myself every day that I'd never be like him. Then I turned around one day, and I realized I was worse."

She reached over to touch his face, phantom fingertips brushing his cheek. Elliot turned away. It was times like these where the unreality of the situation hit him most strongly. In truth, they'd never touched each other with such deliberate intimacy, always maintaining the appropriate distance for friends, partners. They'd only ever gone further in the heat of the moment, in an excess of emotion. But he'd be lying if he said that his heart hadn't pounded sometimes when she brushed by him, when they sat as closely as propriety would allow.

"You're not your father, Elliot." Even in the silence, her voice was nearly inaudible. "And you don't have to be. I don't understand how you can sit here, on your way to murder a man, yet still talk about what makes a good cop like you still believe it."

He raised an eyebrow, a smile playing on his lips. "But I'm not a cop anymore."

"You think that matters? You think not carrying a badge anymore changes the fact that you swore an oath? Turning in your papers doesn't change your duty to uphold the law."

"Yeah, I had a duty. To watch your back. I failed. Least I can do now is get the guy."

"You think I'd want this? For you to throw away your life on some stupid revenge?

"Maybe I'm not doing it for you. Maybe I'm doing it for me. Maybe I just want to see someone finally get what they deserve, for once in my life."

"All you're doing is making the same mistakes as me. As Cassidy. Once you decide that what you _want_ puts you above the rules, you stop being one of the good guys. Do the right thing, Elliot."

"We spent fifteen years trying to do the right thing. Maybe it's time for something else."

Her voice was cutting, "Oh, you're tired of doing the right thing _now_? I don't see why. You got what you wanted."

He whirled around so fast that his neck creaked, but he barely noticed.

"What I wanted? How could you think - how could you even dream that I'd ever want anything like this?"

"Sure you did," she said, and her smile was harder than he remembered, tempered by years of hardship and responsibility. "Maybe it's not how you wanted it, but it's what you wanted. We're out of each other's lives for good now. No more temptations, no more obligations, no more laying awake at night wondering if maybe you should have taken a different path. You can finally make a clean break."

"I - I don't-"

She was watching him, her eyes clear and cold. "I was hurt when you left. Hurt when you wouldn't answer my phone calls, when you wouldn't even give me the courtesy of a real goodbye. But I understood. Maybe a lot of partners can stay friends, but we were never just friends, were we? We would never have been content with lunch every other Wednesday, with exchanging Christmas cards, with phone calls on birthdays. It wouldn't have been enough. And maybe you and Kathy never had the perfect marriage, but I bet it was better before I came along. It was better before there was another woman in your life you'd spent half your waking hours with, who'd saved your life as you saved hers, who'd stood by your side in your darkest hours. So you finally walked away. Cut me out of your life.

"And I could respect that. It's like you said, you chose your family. It was the right choice. It was the only choice" She looked at the floor, taking a slow breath. "But I think both of us thought about the other path one time or another. Wondered if things were different we could have... built something good. But it's too late now, Elliot. If you chase Lewis, all it means is he'll destroy you along with him."

Elliot paused for a long time. Then he smiled grimly and put the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life.

"If that's what it takes."

And with that, he pulled out of the garage and drove into the darkness.


	12. Fragments

A bit of Cassidy backstory before we really get into the action. Probably doesn't answer that many questions, but it's another bit of the puzzle.

* * *

12\. Fragments

_2003_

Brian Cassidy awoke in the darkness, no hint of light or sound anywhere around him. When he tried to move, he found that his hands and legs were bound tightly with rope, no hint of slack.

He took a breath.

"HEY," he yelled into the silence. "What the hell?"

No response. No motion or voices to suggest that anyone had heard. And he wouldn't expect it. The silence was too complete for anyone to be around, too absolute and profound.

He closed his eyes, a meaningless gesture in the darkness, and tried to remember what had happened. He had been undercover with some drug dealers - calling them a gang would have been something of a stretch. They were small time, meth and cocaine, but low quantities. An easy bust for a first time undercover. Clearly, that wasn't how things were working. His last memory was of helping them move inventory. He _had_ thought a couple of them were acting twitchier than usual. And then - darkness.

They had made him - figured out he was a cop. That much was obvious. But why they hadn't killed him, simply shot him in the head and dumped his body in an alley, that was still a mystery.

When it was clear no one was coming, he tried to explore the room as best he could with his hands bound, shuffling awkwardly with his arms and legs. There was a wall three feet to his left, a corner another five feet beyond that, and then -

His knee sank into a puddle of something warm, the feeling of wetness soaking up the leg of his jeans. He froze. Swallowing a wave of nausea, he slowly felt his way around the puddle until his hands hit something soft yet solid, smooth and warm. Tentative fingers felt upwards, clothing, a neck, a nose, then eyes, then a hole with jagged bits of bone where the forehead should be.

He was alone in the darkness with a dead body.

Falling backwards, Brian Cassidy screamed.

* * *

There was no light or contact for an unknown number of minutes or hours. There was no way to tell how much time had passed. Once he'd gotten a hold of himself, he'd spent the time working free of the rope, slow and agonizing work. But after a while, they seemed to loosen, growing wet and slippery with his blood, allowing him to slip out with a final, painful wrench. When his hands were finally free, he worked on his legs, before once again feeling around the room, looking for the door. He tried to avoid the body - now colder and starting to smell. But predictably the door lay just past it, the corpse's leg barely brushing the bottom. It was futile anyway. The door was solid and locked, no amount of pounding or kicking made the slightest bit of difference.

Finally, he gave up, sitting back, waiting for someone to come. He could die in here, dehydrate in the cold and dark, but given that a bullet to the head would have been easier, he thought that wouldn't be the plan.

When the light finally returned, he was unprepared. The heavy door was thrown back and illumination flooded in, nearly blinding him.

Mendez, the gang leader he'd been sent to spy on, stared down at him, eyes flat.

"Pig," he said quietly. "You sneaking rat, you spy."

Cassidy held up his hands. "I don't know where the hell you're getting this, man. I'm not a cop. You know me. Hell, I got arrested by the cops like five days ago. Why am I even here?"

Mendez was unmoved. "Don't lie. Your real name is Brian Cassidy. You work in Narcotics."

"Hey man, that's crazy, I'm not -"

"Don't waste my time, pig. I'm not in the mood."

"I swear to God, I don't know what you're talking about. I wouldn't. I -"

Sighing, Mendez nodded to the man behind him. "Break his finger, would you?"

"Wait - no -"

He screamed as his left hand was pinned to the ground, index finger was bent backwards until it snapped with a grate of ligaments and gristle. Mendez watched him, unmoved.

"If we're going to get any further with this, I think we're going to need some honesty on your part, eh? Listen to me. You tell us what you know, what you've told your buddies, and we can talk about the next step. If not, well..." He glanced to the side.

In all the commotion, Cassidy had almost forgotten about the body. But he followed his gaze to the left, falling on the sprawled figure. He was young, barely eighteen. He had a broad nose and crooked teeth, his eyes dark brown, his hair tightly curled. His face was all too familiar.

"James?"

He'd been a good kid as far as this place went, quick to laugh and joke. He'd gotten into drug dealing to help pay his family's bills, stayed because he couldn't imagine anything else. Cassidy had been leaving him out of his reports, with a half-formed idea of warning him to leave before the police came and raided them, of taking him aside and telling him that he had potential, that this kind of life led nowhere. But now...

"Why?" he said, his voice sounding surprisingly calm to his own ears. "Why would you do this?"

Mendez shrugged, his face filled with a mocking innocence. "Someone had to pay for snitching to the police."

Cassidy lunged at him before he could stop himself, only to be pushed back by a hard boot to the chest. "He didn't know," he snarled, panting. "He had no idea who I was."

"Oh, I'm sure," Mendez said smoothly. "But someone needed to take the blame, and you had to keep your cover, after all. You work for us now."

Cassidy laughed in his face. "Not a chance."

Mendez shrugged. "The next finger, please," he said, smiling politely.

He screamed longer this time, the sound tapering into a slightly hysterical laugh. "You think this is going to make me work for you? Not a chance. The cops know where I am. When they send in SWAT -"

"You'll be killed when we hear so much as a siren. And maybe your other friends will be too."

Cassidy gave him a cold smile. "Won't do you much good, though, will it?"

Mendez only smiled back, his look supremely confident. He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

There were several more hours of darkness. When Cassidy finally heard sounds again, he tensed, preparing to bolt outside - being shot while trying to escape was better than simply waiting to die - but the door only opened for a few seconds as someone else was thrown inside. The newcomer hit the ground with a distinctly feminine huff of pain, and Cassidy tensed, his blood going cold.

_How did they know?_ he wondered numbly. _How did they find out?_

After a few moments of hesitation, he spoke. "Anna?"

She threw herself at him with a cry, her hands groping for his in the darkness. "Mike, what's going on? They grabbed me when I came in, they said you were a cop, they said - "

He shushed her, still numb. Anna was the cousin of one of the gang members, someone who liked to come in, hang with the boys and talk tough, though her smile made her look even younger than she was. She'd smiled at him the first time they'd met, with her short dark hair and her earrings glinting in the dim light, and perhaps he'd lost his head a little. After all, one of the first rules of being undercover was to never get involved with anyone, and this was why, wasn't it? This was why.

The silence stretched on too long and she pulled away abruptly, her body stiffening against his. "You really are a cop," she whispered.

"Yeah."

"Was it all fake then?" she asked bitterly. "Everything you said, everything you did. You were just using us to do your job?"

He reached out for her in the darkness, clutching her hands with his remaining good one. "No. I swear to God."

Her voice trembled. "They're going to kill me too, just because I liked you." She was crying again. "I can't believe you would do this."

He squeezed her hand harder. "I won't let anyone hurt you. I swear. _I swear._"

* * *

2013

"There's an art festival at Riverside Park this weekend. Want to go?" Olivia was watching him from across the room, her mouth quirked up slightly in amusement, like she knew what he was about to say.

And in fairness, she probably did.

"I dunno," Cassidy said, flipping to another channel. "Doesn't really sound like my kind of thing."

"Seriously?" She rolled her eyes and came to sit on the couch beside him, putting a hand over his. "You think a bit of culture is going to kill you?"

"I get plenty of culture."

"Pay per view wrestling isn't culture, Brian," she said, humor mixing with exasperation. "Don't you want to do something different for a change?"

He didn't really, but she was giving him that look that was part cajoling, part challenge that always made it impossible to say no. He threw up his hands in submission.

"Okay. If you really want to go, let's go."

Early March was essentially still winter, and the type of people who held outdoor art festivals in such weather were - predictably - absolute lunatics who found great meaning in squiggles of line. He was bored by the fourth booth, and he found his gaze drifting unavoidably back to Olivia, who was apparently listening to the artist talk with great interest.

Thirteen years had spanned their meetings, and while he was pretty sure that he'd never crossed her mind in all their years apart, he'd thought of her a hundred times, wondering what she was doing, whether she was happy. Whether his life would have gone differently if he'd had the fortitude to stay at SVU. He was under no illusions that their fling might have become something more if he'd stayed - even now, their differences grated harshly sometimes. But perhaps things still would have been better.

The last decade had been hard on them both, and the changes in her were obvious. She was slower to smile now and rarely laughed, her eyes filled with a seriousness that ran deep and didn't fade. But her experiences had honed her too, like she'd been a knife at a whetstone, a diamond at a gem cutter. Whereas he was pretty sure his own time in the fire had caused irrevocable damage.

Perhaps he was deluding himself with this relationship, he admitted silently. It had begun as another one night stand, a way to forget the rest of the world for a few hours. He never dreamed it would even progress so far as lazy Sundays and art galleries together. Any further and he would have to leave her, for both their sakes. He should have done it long ago. But Olivia always had some ineffable quality that made it hard for men to simply walk away, some bit of grace or serenity that kept them coming back, even when they knew better.

She accused him sometimes of never thinking of the future, of settling down or growing old, and it was all he could do to keep from laughing. There was no future for men like him, no growing old. Pretending otherwise only led to grief. That she made him forget this sometimes was half the reason he stayed.

He was brought back to the present by fingers snapping in front of his face, Olivia looking amused again as she stared him down.

"Earth to Brian."

He blinked. "Sorry, I -"

"You're about to keel over from boredom, aren't you?"

"No. Well -"

She sighed. "We can leave, if you want."

"No, let's stay. Just - thinking."

She shrugged and shot him a rare smile, turning to walk again. He was about to follow her when he stopped. Sitting on a park bench was an all too familiar figure, his dark hair slightly tousled from the cold wind, his lanky frame draped with effortless poise against his seat, an easy grin lingering on his face.

Cassidy felt a chill. Their paths had crossed a half dozen times over the years - he was pretty sure the man sought him out, though how he knew where to find him was a mystery - and when they did, he usually wanted something.

But the man wasn't watching Cassidy this time. He was watching Olivia, staring at her retreating figure with all too much interest. Finally, he turned back to Cassidy and winked.

_I haven't forgotten,_ his smile said, before he stood up, disappearing into the crowd.

Cassidy stood frozen, his fists clenched hard enough to hurt.

_If you dare_, he thought, then controlled himself quickly, unclenching his fists. It was a bluff. A taunt, probably. Hopefully.

Badly shaken, he hurried to catch up to Olivia, even as a pair of dark eyes still watched them from the crowd.


	13. All In

13\. All In

* * *

Elliot drove to the airport in the darkness, stopping only once at an ATM to get cash, withdrawing the maximum. At the airport, he managed to get a red eye ticket to Las Vegas, with only a short layover in Chicago. He paid with a credit card. No point in trying to hide this particular purchase.

He thought he'd be too wired to rest, but he found instead that he dropped off before the plane even left the ground, his sleep deep and untroubled by dreams.

He arrived in Vegas mid-morning, right as the first big wave of travelers swelled the screening lines, chatting amongst themselves with blithe cheer. The air outside was hot and dry, irritating his lungs. The sun beat down with an intensity he would never have imagined. He rented a car at the airport, then drove to a grocery store, buying canned food and bottled water. And zip ties. Nothing terribly suspicious. He paid in cash. The teenaged cashier didn't even give him a second look.

Sun Springs was two hours north of Vegas, a place that lingered somewhere between a large town and a small city, rising up among the yellow grass and thorny scrub. It was a place that had clearly seen better days, the streets downtown empty for a Saturday afternoon, dotted with halfhearted graffiti and cracked sidewalks.

Heather Riggs's address led him to a neighborhood that had also seen better days, wide sprawling houses with chipped and faded paint, front yards either barren or overgrown. Compared to the rest of the area, the house in question was almost nice, brightly painted, the yard patterned cleanly with gravel.

Elliot parked in the shade of a scrubby tree, slightly down the street. And then he waited. He watched the house for nearly two days, eating and sleeping in the car, only leaving when absolutely necessary. He waited like a monk meditating in the elements, searching for some dark enlightenment. He waited with the serenity of a man who had always known that he and his partner had always been dancing a dance that could only lead to destruction, one way or another. The heat didn't bother him, nor the cold at night, nor the tedium of the long hours of emptiness. He did worry for the first couple hours that a neighbor might call the police to report a suspicious man, but no one did. He got the sense that this was the kind of place where people rather pointedly minded their own business.

On the second night, he awoke from a light doze when headlights flashed past his eyes, and he sat up, instantly alert. A car drove past, its paint black in the darkness, its engine a quiet rumble in the stillness. It didn't turn into the driveway but instead stopped about two houses away, idling for a moment, as if in thought. Then the headlights flipped off and someone stepped out. A man, tall with short hair. Beyond that, Elliot couldn't tell. He had to get closer.

He slipped out of his own car as noiselessly as he could, his muscles creaking from disuse. He grabbed his stack of car rental papers as he left, a half-formed plan already swirling in his mind.

"Hey," he said. His voice was soft and slightly hoarse, but it shattered the silence like a fist through one way glass.

The man looked back, his expression one of understandable caution. Early morning was a time of solitude and contemplation. To approach a stranger was a faux pas committed only by the socially inept and the mad. And Elliot supposed he must look insane, with his rumpled shirt and two day stubble, eyes too wide from lack of sleep. But that was okay. Good, in fact.

"Hi there," he repeated, his voice overly bright. "I know that as a fellow early riser, you're the kind of person that can appreciate Nevada's natural beauty. That's why I want to talk to you about our petition to halt development in the Sun Spring outlands.

There was a pause as the two men sized each other up. It was hard to see the other man's face in the darkness. He was tall, his lanky frame disguising a lean muscularity. The pictures of William Lewis in the news had been of a dark-haired man with a scar around his eye. This man had bleached blond hair cropped close to his skull, with no visible marks on his face in the dim predawn light. Both of those could have been easily done with cosmetics, however. His features weren't quite right either - a resemblance but not quite identical. But that might be okay too. Sometimes people didn't look like their pictures, the two dimensional renderings failing to capture some spirit or essence of the person. He was close, though. If Elliot had been making an arrest, this man would already be on the ground in handcuffs. But this was much beyond an arrest.

The other man had been staring back, making his own assessments, and had apparently decided Elliot was crazy but harmless.

"Get lost," he said, already turning away.

Elliot couldn't let him leave. He caught the man's shoulder, waving his car rental papers in front of his face with excessive fervor.

"You don't care about the fate of our remaining open space? If we don't act now, Nevada is going to be nothing but urban sprawl and McMansions."

The other man whirled on him. "Look -"

Elliot clocked him in the jaw. The man fell to the ground with a grunt of pain, a look of surprise intermixing with anger. Another blow sent him out cold.

Straightening, Elliot glanced around, convinced he was about to see a crowd of stunned neighbors, hands poised on their smart phones to call 911. But the street was still dark and empty. Four houses down, a single square of yellow light shone through a pane of frosted glass.

Hands shaking, Elliot dug through the man's pockets until he found his car keys - he couldn't use the rental for this. He bound the man's hands and shoved him in the trunk. Then he got into the car and pulled out of the neighborhood, tires squealing in the silence.

* * *

Elliot had been in danger before. He had been struck, he had been shot, he had even been pushed off a building. But nothing he had been through in his life so far had been as nerve wracking as driving down the streets with a human being in his trunk.

He headed for the highway immediately, shoulders hunched, muscles tense, cold sweat trickling down the small of his back.

Though his instincts screamed to floor the gas pedal, he set cruise control two miles below the speed limit, observing every traffic nicety with meticulous care. Half an hour in, a state highway patrol car slid into the road behind him, and his frazzled nerves nearly snapped. He clenched the steering wheel, fighting twin urges to either bolt or pull over and confess. Too many things could go wrong - the man could have kicked out a tail light, the car could have been reported stolen, the cop could simply sense something was off. When the patrol car zoomed past him five minutes later, Elliot finally breathed again, almost dizzy with relief.

The eerie silence from the trunk worried him, however. He would have expected pleas or threats. Anything but this endless quiet. He couldn't be unconscious. Trauma induced unconsciousness could only last a few minutes before causing irreversible damage. Maybe he was dead. Maybe Elliot was driving down the interstate with a rotting corpse in his trunk.

He finally turned off the highway onto a smaller paved street, passing through a tiny town of only 20 buildings, along with several sprawling ranch houses. He drove past them with barely a second glance, waiting for something further away, with fewer neighbors, passing cars. It occurred to him that Lewis must have had this same idea a dozen times in his life, but he quashed the thought before it could sink in.

A left turn took him to a dirt road and another ranch house. Two more miles led him to a dilapidated barn. It was a long, squat structure, the boards on its walls shrunken and warped. Some scraps of dusty gray paint clung to the wood, the original colors lost to time and the elements. The air was silent and still, no rumble of tires or whisper of voices. A single tired cricket chirped intermittently in a distant patch of sagebrush.

Satisfied, Elliot went back to the car. He popped the trunk and yanked the man out in a single motion.

"Walk," he said, nodding to the barn. He brandished no weapon, made no threat of violence. The man complied meekly, without protest. Perhaps something in his face must have warned him that resistance would be a bad idea.

The interior of the barn was out of the direct sun but no less sweltering, the air stale and musty. Sunlight from the cracks in the wall illuminated the motes of dust floating by. A floorboard creaked dangerously under their feet, and the man whirled around, desperation written all over his features.

"Look, if this is about money, my wallet fell out in the trunk, and I've got a debit card at -"

Elliot kicked him to his knees. "You know this isn't about money."

The man's breath quickened, a bead of sweat trickling down his neck into his shirt. "Is it - does Hernandez think someone snitched? Because I swear it wasn't me. I never - I'm loyal - I'm a good customer. I wouldn't -"

Part of Elliot's mind cried out that something was wrong, but he quashed it again. "Don't bother, Lewis. I know who you are."

"I - what?" The man swallowed dryly, his throat clicking, his eyes darting back and forth in thought. Finally, realization dawned, and he let out a sob of mostly hysterical laughter. "Lewis? Like William Lewis? The serial killer in New York? You think that - oh God. That's really - I'm not."

Elliot's heart was pounding too. "Don't - don't lie," he said, his voice hoarse.

"I swear. My name is Keith Barkley. I sell insurance. Born December 30, 1977. You can check my driver's license." He let out another terrified laugh. "You always hope your celebrity look-alike is going to be a movie star. You never think -"

"Driver's licenses are easy to fake," Elliot pointed out. His head was buzzing.

"If you don't believe me, you can take me to the police station. I bet they can check - I don't know, fingerprints, DNA, something. Because I swear..."

That was the last thing Elliot wanted to do. "What were you doing in that neighborhood at 4 AM?" he demanded.

Another hoarse giggle, this time tinged with shame. "Buying drugs. Not - nothing hardcore. I got in a car accident last year. Kind of got hooked on Oxycodone. This was the last one, I swear. But my girlfriend doesn't know, so I had to come before she woke up."

Elliot was silent, his mind oddly blank.

After a while, the man spoke again, sounding tentative but slightly more calm. "Look, is this some kind of... revenge thing? Because I can understand that. God knows that guy deserves whatever's coming to him. But it's not me. If you just take me to the police station, we can get this all sorted out. I'll tell them I went with you willingly. I swear."

Elliot stared at him another long moment. Then he turned on his heel. "If I come back and see you've moved so much as an inch, I'll kill you."

The man nodded anxiously.

Out in the burning sun, he opened the trunk again, taking out the wallet and then the card inside. Nevada driver's license. Keith Barkley. Date of birth December 30, 1977. Clear photo. He opened the passenger side door to look through the glove box. The registration matched as well. An empty pill bottle lay near the back of the compartment.

Elliot held his head in his hands. This excursion was over before it began. All these things could be faked, true. But it all fit a little too well. He couldn't kill a man on a maybe. What had been his basis for grabbing him, anyway? That he had been a tallish, mid-thirties man? There had to be thousands of those in Nevada alone.

They had to go to the police, which meant Elliot's life was over as he knew it. It meant a whole slew of felony charges, disgrace in the eyes of his family and the law. It was too much to hope that the man would keep his word and tell the police that he had gone along willingly, and this was assuming no one had reported him missing yet.

The urge to simply leave the man and run floated temptingly through his mind - but he couldn't. It would make him a murderer and a coward besides. He would stand tall and face the consequences. If only he could have taken Lewis down with him, it would be almost worth it. But sometimes things didn't work out that way.

Taking one last weary look around the car, his gaze fell on something concealed below the passenger seat, perhaps jolted loose by its journey on the dirt road. He reached down, picking it up.

A Glock 19. Olivia's gun of choice. He turned it over in his hands, looking it over cautiously. The weapon was new or rarely used, the nylon plastic frame was still glossy. The serial number was starkly readable even in the dim light, but without access to any databases, that was unhelpful. And there - in the groove of the grip. A thin line of reddish brown. Blood. Heart pounding, he went back to the trunk and felt along the bottom, until his fingers bumped into an uneven line. He hit it hard and it flew open, revealing a compartment filled with false license plates and papers.

Elliot's rage returned in a roaring crimson wave. He stormed back into the barn as the man looked up in surprise. He whipped the gun down against his head, leaving a long bleeding gash.

Lewis let out a cry of pain and surprise. "What - what are you doing?"

"This was her gun." His voice shook with controlled fury.

"What - no. It's mine. My house got broken into twice last year. I bought it to protect myself."

"You're a liar. It's hers. You took it from her and you kept it. You kept it as a souvenir."

He drew back his hand again, and Lewis flinched back a little, blood dripping down his face. The trail of blood curved slightly around his left eye socket, tracing a scar that had been painstakingly concealed, and Elliot cursed himself for letting Lewis rattle him, making him miss the obvious.

"No - look - "

He struck him in the mouth this time, and Lewis reeled, rising back up spitting blood. He opened his mouth as though to protest again, but something about the way Elliot gripped the gun must have convinced him that denial would be futile. He cocked his head for a moment, as if in thought. Then the mask of wounded innocence melted away, to be replaced with a look of cool, amused cunning.

"Guess you got me," he said, a bloody grin on his face. "So now what?"


	14. Serpent and File

14\. Serpent and File

_Now what?_

The words seemed to hang in the air like a challenge, and for all Lewis lay bound and bleeding on the floor, Elliot felt the balance of power in the room shift slightly in the other man's favor. What _had_ he been planning? In the last couple weeks, he'd been charging forward largely on instinct, sprinting ahead blindly in some vain hope of outrunning the crushing knowledge of Olivia's death. He'd flown halfway across the country, broken a dozen laws, probably irreparably damaged his marriage. But now that he'd finally reached his goal, he found himself at a loss.

Elliot had crossed lines before, had struck suspects in anger, had beaten a former friend to a pulp to protect the man's son. He'd dreamed of hurting the nastier perps, had closed his eyes and imagined breaking in their kneecaps, shooting them between the eyes. Maybe cold-blooded torture and murder had only been a few steps beyond where he'd been headed, but the man he'd been was three years dead now. Pain and death were what Lewis deserved, and giving it to him should have been easy. But it wasn't.

The silence stretched on a little too long, until suddenly it was broken by the sound of Lewis's laughter, ringing in the stillness.

"You don't know," he managed between chuckles. "You really don't know. You came all this way without a clue about what you wanted. I've started to expect this kind of thing from the NYPD, but I thought that since you caught up to me, you might be a little better. I guess not. Honestly, do they make you trade in a couple brain cells for that badge?"

Blood was pounding in his ears again. "I came to make you pay," he said, slowly and deliberately.

Lewis shrugged. "Do it then. I'm right here. What's stopping you?"

He raised a fist and then hesitated again. The other man watched him, still smiling, his eyes hooded in the dim light of the barn.

"Funny thing, revenge," he said softly. "People say it's not worth it, but that's not true. It might not be, for some. It takes a certain personality to appreciate it. You have to find joy in human misery. You have to stare down at your enemy at their lowest moment and kick them down further, because you enjoy it, and you've always enjoyed it. Are you one of those? I suppose you could be. But I don't know if anyone who came this far for Olivia Benson could ever really appreciate it like they should."

Elliot was silent.

"If you need some ideas, I can tell you what I did to her. Because if you want an example of good revenge, my time with her was better than you can imagine."

"Shut up," Elliot growled, starting forward.

Lewis didn't seem to hear, his eyes distant. "I stripped her down first. It was mostly mindset. Last summer, we could take our time. This time, I wanted her to remember why she was there."

Elliot struck him across the cheek, but Lewis only shook his head, spitting out a mouthful of blood before he licked his lips with a grin.

"Then I hurt her. I burned her and I cut her, and she screamed until she couldn't anymore. And then -"

"I said, shut up," Elliot repeated, kicking him in the stomach. Lewis paused for a moment, winded. But when he stared at Elliot again, his eyes were bright.

"You should have seen her face when I finally took her. She cried. She didn't make a sound. But she closed her eyes and cried, and she was better than you could even imagine."

Elliot knocked Lewis to the ground, his fists moving in a furious blur, but horror seemed to rob him of his strength, the other man's words burrowing into his psyche.

Lewis waited until he stopped, then looked up at him, his smile as wide as ever through bloodied lips. "About a day in, she tried to escape. She slipped out of the ropes somehow. She's good at that. She still thought she had a chance, crazy as it seems. But she didn't get far. I caught her and I broke both her legs, and then I made her beg me on her knees to take her -"

Elliot kicked out again with a snarl, feeling something crack beneath his foot. As he did, he thought he heard the echo of a woman's agonized cry, and he flinched despite himself.

Lewis had barely moved. "She didn't really give up until partway through the second day. I can always tell when it happens. There's something in their voice when they finally understand it's the end. That there's nothing left of their life but pain, and all they can do is wait for my mercy."

"Stop," Elliot whispered, the word slipping out his mouth before he could stop himself. Lewis's eyes glittered in triumph.

"If you didn't want to hear all the grisly details, why did you come?" he asked, with apparently genuine curiosity. "Who are you, that you would risk jail time or worse by coming here?" He smirked a little. "Pretty sure you weren't her boyfriend. Ex-husband, maybe? Some old flame, and you never got over her? I feel like I should know. But my memory's a bit fuzzy sometimes. Head trauma, you know. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been recent. She had the look of someone who's used to being alone."

"None of your business," Elliot muttered, trying to collect his thoughts.

Lewis shook his head mock-sadly. "Do you know the worst irony of this whole thing? Olivia Benson spent her life putting herself last, and so did everyone she ever cared about. Her parents - well, given all her issues, I doubt they ever did much for her. We don't even need to talk about her boyfriend. And you - did you promise you'd be there for her? Protect her? Because you didn't. You fell in love with a woman who always chose the hardest path. And then you decided your life would be easier if she walked that path alone. When faced with the choice between her and themselves, every single person in her life chose themselves. Except me. I broke out of jail for her. I risked death or a lifetime of prison just to see her one last time."

Elliot swallowed the bile rising in his throat. "You're sick. You're insane. I almost feel bad for you."

Lewis grinned at him, twisted glee in his eyes.

"When I finally killed her, I made it slow. I made sure she saw it coming, made sure she felt every second. And you know what? She was afraid. She trembled and she cried, and she begged me over and over just to let her go. It was impressive, in its way. After two days with me, most people are just happy that it's over."

Elliot kicked him again, but with a strange, warped smile on his face, an icy certainty in his heart. "You're lying," he said softly.

Lewis gave him a sly look. "You really think so, don't you?"

"I know so. She never begged you. She never would. Whatever it is you wanted from her, I don't think you got it. You threw everything you had at her, and it still wasn't enough."

"It's funny the illusions people have about the ones they love. They're together every day but they don't see each other at all. Maybe you didn't know her as well as you thought. But I did. We spent days together, just her and me. I held her as she took her last breath, I watched the light fade from her eyes. I took her apart, bit by bit, I've laid hands on every fragment of her soul. I know her better than you ever did, and I promise you that when I killed her, there was nothing left of the woman you knew."

Elliot didn't hold back this time, raining down blows with unchecked fury. But even as bones snapped and gristle crunched, Lewis barely flinched, staring at Elliot with a hungered fascination until he let his fists drop, panting.

This was futile. It had been deluded to think that a man who burned off his fingerprints on a whim could even comprehend pain, much less be bothered by it. It was like trying to revenge yourself on an earthquake, a tidal wave. There would be no balancing of the scales, no justice or satisfaction. He'd come all this way on a fool's errand, an impossibility. But this meant there was nothing left.

Lewis was still watching him, and he shook his head.

"I have to say, you're a disappointment. When I first saw Olivia, I thought to myself, I know her type. I bet men used to line up, throw themselves at her feet just for a smile. But yet, things never worked out. I always thought it might be because she was too hung up on someone else. And I hope it wasn't you. I was expecting someone better."

He settled back, his eyes thoughtful, blood dripping steadily from his nose. "I respected her, you know, in my own way. It hurt me to have to kill her. I wanted her to live out the rest of her life remembering what I did to her. But I knew if I let her leave, she'd never rest until I was dead. And I couldn't let that happen. I've played this game a hundred times before, and if only one person walks out, it's always me."

Slowly, Elliot reached for the gun, leveling it at Lewis's forehead. "Not today."

The man raised his eyebrows. "So soon? I thought you wanted to make me pay."

"There's nothing I want from you."

"No? How about where to find Brian Cassidy?"

There was a pause. Then Elliot laughed.

"I thought you were supposed to be a good liar. This is just pathetic."

"I'm a great liar," Lewis said blandly. "But I've found that sometimes the truth cuts harder. So here's another truth. People like me when I want them to. You would have too, if we'd met under different circumstances."

"I'd never -"

"Sure you would," he said, his voice cheerful. "People always do. Now imagine for a moment a you're a young man - from a bad neighborhood, parents never had much time. Nice enough deep down, but not too bright. Like so many other young men, you get into drug dealing for the easy money, but unlike many young men, you luck out, in a way. You don't fall into just any street gang, but end up as a foot soldier in the beginnings of a crime empire. You're loyal, hardworking, so you rise through the ranks fast. But then you get caught. Your friends and allies evaporate like they were never there. The police interview you, and you know enough to get a lot of people into trouble. But you can't say a word, or you'll be killed. All you can do is vent to your fellow prisoner, who's so friendly, so sympathetic and _such_ a good listener."

Lewis gave him a shark-like grin. "You know Cassidy has more than one boss if you've made it this far. I've known since I met him. It just took the NYPD a little longer, that's all. And after meeting my friend from jail, I have a pretty good guess where he might be."

"And you think," Elliot said softly, "that after everything you've done, that'll be enough to buy you your life?"

Lewis shrugged, unconcerned. "I'm not asking you to let me walk. Drop me off at the nearest police station. I doubt they'll look very hard for who did it."

"Not a chance."

"Too bad. After all, it was never really me you wanted to find, was it? I'm nothing but a mad dog. I was born with something broken in my head, and I was never going to be anything but your enemy. But Cassidy - he was a cop. If you knew Olivia, you must have known him as well. Maybe you worked with him, maybe he was even your friend. You've probably had drinks with him, talked about cases, given him advice. Thought you understood him. Then this. It eats at you, doesn't it? Wondering if there was any way you could have seen this coming. And now you'll go to your grave never knowing why. Even if they manage to catch him alive somehow, he's never going to talk. Certainly not to you."

Elliot narrowed his eyes. "How _did_ you know Cassidy, anyway?"

"Sounds like the kind of thing you should ask him."

His finger tightened on the trigger of the gun, and they stared each other down for a long moment.

Finally, he lowered the weapon and smiled tightly. "How about this? You tell me what you know, and if I think it sounds worthwhile, I'll leave you here. If you can crawl back to civilization from all the way out here, you deserve to live. I'm sure the cops will give you great medical care before sticking your ass in jail for the rest of your life."

Lewis was silent for a long time. "Your word on it?"

"Yeah. Unless you keep stalling. Where is he?"

"In a nice little town named Fairview. Southern California. East of LA. You'll probably find him at a warehouse right at the edge of town by the highway. If you're lucky, you might see some trucks parked outside with the words "Sheiffer's Quality Shipping."

He raised his brows. "And what would he be doing there?"

Lewis sighed. "It's really disappointing how slow you are. It's not exactly a warehouse for office supplies, you know. All sorts of things go through there, drugs, weapons, you name it. Most people who know about it are in pretty deep, so it's the perfect place to hide out while still being useful. Of course, if you want to go see Cassidy, you might have to shoot your way in. They're known for being pretty nasty."

Wearing a smile to match Lewis's Elliot holstered his gun and raised a fist, stepping forward. "Thanks for your advice."

Lewis frowned. "But you said -"

"Surprise," he said. "Cops lie."

* * *

The drive was less nerve-wracking this time. Perhaps everything was easier the second time around, even driving down the highway with a body in the trunk. Or perhaps Elliot had simply passed too many points of no return to allow himself to worry about one more.

He drove north for another two hours, pausing every so often to check out promising exits and side streets. He finally found a dirt road that work crews had apparently given up on, the smoothed dirt path simply petering out after fifteen or so miles. There were no signs of houses or cars, no ingrained tire tracks marring the road. He might have kept driving, but once off the road, the car immediately rolled over a dip in the ground, the undercarriage grating against the dirt and rocks with a noise that made his teeth ache. He slammed the brakes with a shudder before backing up towards the road. It would be fitting but unfortunate if he did something to ruin his car now, if he condemned himself to death out here alongside Lewis.

Once on the road again, he turned off the engine and circled around to the back. He pulled the body out of the trunk, Lewis's head hitting the ground with a satisfying thump. Half a mile away, a reddish boulder jutted out towards the sky. That would be as good a place to leave him as any, hidden from the road.

Letting out a sigh, Elliot began to walk, dragging the body behind him. Everything was silent except the crunch of dirt beneath his feet. The sun hung low, shadows stretching out along the ground. When he finally reached the boulder, he nearly collapsed, sitting heavily on the dirt in its meager shade. His shirt was soaked through, the torn skin on his knuckles stinging from his sweat.

It took him a few minutes to catch his breath. He was standing up to leave when a sudden noise came from behind him, a wet sound like a boot rising from muck. He jumped, nearly losing his balance. He whirled around, but no one was there. Only Lewis, his chest moving jerkily up and down with each breath. He was still alive.

Elliot stared at him for a moment, too surprised to react. But if Lewis was alive, he wouldn't be for much longer. Fresh blood dripped past his lips, each breath slow and labored. His shoulders shook, and Elliot wondered what was happening. It took him a minute to realize it was from laughter, the sound hoarse and inhuman.

"I figured it out," Lewis said. His voice was a harsh rasp, like they came from the rotted vocal chords of a dead man.

"Figured what out?"

"You. I know who you are now. You were her partner." He made a noise, half laugh, half cough. "She thought of you, you know. The first time. She thought she was going to die and she thought of you. I never saw anyone look so unhappy. But do you think - do you think she thought of anyone the second time? Do you think she still believed there might be anyone left in her life that might help her when she fell? Anyone at all?"

The urge to start forward and finish breaking in his skull was strong, but Elliot resisted, turning away. He would die anyway, even if help came. This was the way to leave it. A better punishment than killing him outright.

There was another bout of hacking laughter. "However much I hurt her, I don't think it even compared to what you did."

He whirled around, his fist raised. But Lewis was already gone, his face empty except for the lingering trace of vicious amusement.

Elliot turned back towards the car, calming his breathing before he started walking again, his fists still clenched, fingernails digging into his palms. After a few steps, Olivia was beside him, falling in stride, her brown hair long, tied back in a ponytail.

"Don't let Lewis get to you," she said, not looking at him. "He's a liar before anything else. Says whatever he can to make things go his way."

"And the best liars use the truth to make it sting."

"Only you can decide if you should believe him."

Elliot shook his head wearily. "I don't even know. I'm just glad it's over."

"If you wanted to hide the body, you should have buried him. Someone's bound to come by here sooner or later."

"I want him to be found. You think I'd let people think he got away? I just want to let the animals work him over a little, fuzz the time of death, let any DNA degrade a bit."

"And when he is found, and the cops realize you took an unexplained trip to Nevada? What then?"

"I'll tell them the truth, that I got a tip and came out here to try and find him. Then I'll just say I spent a week checking out the area, didn't find anyone. He must have been killed before he reached the safe house. No crime against coming by to look for a guy. Sure they're going to be suspicious, but if I keep my mouth shut, they haven't got enough for a case."

Olivia was silent for a moment, and he thought she might be impressed despite herself. "What about Cassidy?"

"I'll figure it out when I get there. No point in worrying now." He turned to her, brows raised. "You're being surprisingly positive about this, all things considered. What, no dire warnings to turn back?"

She smiled sadly. "We both know it's too late for that."

And then she was gone, leaving Elliot to finish the long trek to the car alone.


	15. A Thousand and One

15\. A Thousand and One

Elliot drove for another hour or more, exhaustion dragging at his eyelids as sky darkened from dark blue to black. He managed to keep from running off the road for long enough to make it to the next town, stopping at the very first motel he saw. It was a one story, sleazy sort of place, the neon sign flickering dimly, the curtains in the windows yellow against the streetlights.

He managed to convince the surly night clerk to accept his deposit in cash, taking the key card and trudging to the very last room. It smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, the air conditioning clanking like a steel barrel being dragged by a freight train. The neighbor's television blared an infomercial for vitamins loudly from the next room. Elliot didn't mind. He lay down on the bed without undressing, falling asleep before his head hit the pillow.

When he woke up, his body was one massive ache, his shoulders stiff, his knuckles bruised and split, throbbing slowly with the beat of his heart. He managed to stagger out of bed into the shower, where the hot water soothed his muscles but stung his hands, and the joints in his fingers creaked when he tried to flex them. He closed his eyes again, resting his forehead against the tiled bathroom wall.

"You're too damn old for this," he muttered aloud, trying to flex his fingers again. The pain was worse this time. Age crept up on you like a prowling leopard. You turned around one day only to suddenly realize your joints were a little stiffer, your reflexes a little slower, your body unable to bounce back the way it used to. It was frightening to think of all the fights he might have lost, all the little altercations that might have gone a different way if he'd faced them again now, if he'd been slowed by only that fraction of a second.

And he still had to take on Cassidy like this. Because while Lewis may have been a choice, simply reporting Cassidy to the authorities was no longer an option. There was no way to hide the source of the information, no way to make the tip seem plausible without revealing what happened. With a groan, Elliot forced himself out of the shower.

Fortunately, once outside the motel, he discovered the place was half a block from a CVS. He stumbled inside and bought gauze and a bottle of aspirin, awkwardly handing over his money left-handed, his badly bruised right hand hidden in his pocket. He got a slightly odd look from the cashier, but she turned to the next customer without real interest.

He wrapped his hand in the parking lot before heading to the diner across the street. Two aspirin, a cup of coffee and a sandwich later, he felt almost human again. He borrowed a map from a chatty old couple from Wisconsin, then sat down at his booth, tracing the route to Fairview with his fingers.

A blonde waitress who couldn't have been long out of high school stopped at his table to refill his coffee, looking him over with curiosity.

"Oh no," she chirped. "What happened to your hands?"

Elliot looked down at his gauze-wrapped knuckles, and smiled grimly. "Dropped a box while moving."

"Sorry to hear that." She moved onto the next table and Elliot finished his food, returned the map, and left. He paid in cash, an average tip, small bills. Nothing memorable, nothing to mark him in the minds of these people. Hopefully.

Then he got in his car and back onto the highway, the town receding in his rearview immediately, melting into the haze of the desert. The radio broke out into static after only a couple miles and Elliot turned it off, leaving only the purr of the engine and the rumble of the road.

He glanced beside him and saw that Olivia was back, sitting quietly in the front seat, head tilted against the headrest, her eyes closed, a tendril of short, light hair waving in the breeze from the air conditioning. She didn't speak, and neither did he. Miles passed, the highway stretching endlessly before him, surrounded by sand and sagebrush, fences and dry farmland.

Perversely, a strange sense of contentment stole over him. Perhaps this was how hypothermia victims felt when the biting cold was finally replaced by a soft, illusory warmth. Or perhaps it was like the final moments of drowning, oxygen deprivation settling in deep enough to eradicate the pain. All he knew was that he felt he could drive forever like this, roll down the open road for eternity with Olivia at his side.

"I wish I had traveled more," he said into the silence. "But I suppose when you've got five kids and one salary, roaming the country is pretty much out."

"Life's all about compromises."

"Yeah. Doesn't hurt to think about it. What about you? What's your wish?"

She smiled without opening her eyes, sunlight streaming through the windshield and illuminating her face. "I don't even know."

"Come on. I know you have one. Better yet, you find a genie. You get three wishes. What do you do?"

She finally turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. "A genie? Really?"

"Eli's going through an Aladdin phase. I can probably recite the movie to you if you need ideas."

"No thanks." She sighed. "I think I'd need a thousand wishes. Or none."

"You'd turn down three wishes?"

"You didn't read enough as a kid, Elliot. Wishes always go wrong."

"Wish for a couple million dollars. That's pretty hard to mess up."

"Unexplained wealth is against the law. The feds would come and take it, and you'd probably end up in jail."

"You're just a ray of sunshine today, aren't you?"

"I was always the practical one."

"Yeah, right." His mood soured inexplicably, and he suddenly wished he hadn't broken the silence. "Suppose you could always wish you shot Lewis in the head the moment you met him."

"Shooting an unarmed flasher would have gone over great with IAB."

"Wish he was never born then."

"Destroy one monster, there's always another waiting in the wings."

"World peace?"

"Maybe violence is a fundamental part of human nature. Make that wish, you might destroy humanity as we know it, replace every man, woman and child with something else. Something better, something worse, you don't really know. Are you going to take that responsibility?"

Elliot gave up. "So what would you wish, then?"

"I told you, I don't know."

"Bullshit. You shot down all my ideas. You've gotta come up with at least one."

She smiled, very briefly. "I guess... I'd ask for a chance to live my life again, knowing what I do now."

"What would you change?"

"Everything. Nothing. I'm not really sure." She looked out the window, eyes unfocused. "Every choice you make in life opens one door and closes another. You can't help but wonder what lies behind those doors you never touched. If they would have been... better."

"Maybe."

She grinned suddenly. "I wanted to be a professor once, you know."

"No offense, but I can't even imagine it."

"Me neither. I was trying to please my mother. Thought if I followed in her footsteps she might finally see herself in me instead of my father. Probably wouldn't have worked though."

"Maybe not."

"Still, it wouldn't have been a bad life. There would have be less running. Could have spent my days writing grants, grading papers. Married a guy who wore bad suits, talked about Proust at parties. Had the standard 2.1 kids. Gone to soccer games and PTA meetings - "

"Finally die of boredom at age 87, surrounded by your six beautiful grandchildren."

"Screw you."

"Hey, if it'd make you happy, who am I to judge?"

"Happy." She made a face. "Maybe I'd try my life again and find that I'd make all the same choices anyway. I didn't join SVU because I thought it'd make me happy. I did it because I had to. Because I thought it was my job to put a bit of light into the world to make up for the darkness that brought me in. Even when it hurt, even when I didn't enjoy it."

"See, maybe I'd wish that you wouldn't feel that way. That you had to spend your life making up for something someone else did."

"But that's the problem with wishes right there. People aren't cars, where you can take out one piece and put in another. Change one thing about someone and maybe you find they're completely different. Humans hurt each other enough without magic or wishes. Maybe it's better that way."

"I guess I'm not as cautious as you. I'd make some wishes in a heartbeat."

"All right, what are your wishes then? Keep them small. Try not to end humanity as we know it."

"I'll do my best." His grin faded and he paused for a long time. "I wish... I wish you'd never had to deal with William Lewis. I wish I hadn't shot Jenna Fox."

"That's two. What's the third?"

He didn't answer. He pulled into the exit lane into Fairview as the sun dipped lower in the sky, staining the fields a dull red.

* * *

The warehouse was exactly as Lewis had described it, a sprawling building surrounded by a chain link fence right at the edge of town, trucks labeled with Sheiffer's Quality Shipping parked around the edges. Elliot drove by as slowly as he dared, trying to scope it out without seeming suspicious. No guard waited at the door, but that might have been suspicious in itself for this relatively upscale area. A night watchman probably patrolled the area later on in the evening. There was a locked gate that led in from the road, but no other obvious entrances. This would be tricky.

He circled the place twice more before deciding he had pushed his luck far enough. About three blocks away, he spotted a fast food place, and he stopped, going inside and ordering himself a hamburger. He sat alone in a booth, eating slowly, losing himself in anonymity among the chatty college kids and tired geriatrics. As he ate, he tried to plan. The fence around the warehouse was only eight feet tall, no barbed wire at the top - almost more of a psychological barrier than a physical one. As a kid, he could have shimmied over in a minute. As a man of over fifty, he would look absurd trying to do the same thing. An easier way would be to get a bolt cutter and simply cut a hole. Getting out would be easier too. But assuming he could even find a hardware store nearby, it was unlikely that one would still be open this late.

_So wait until tomorrow_.

But he couldn't. He was running on momentum now. It would be too easy to lose focus, to think better of this. He tried to summon up some memory of Olivia, to find some untapped well of strength or patience. Nothing came, her features wavering in his thoughts. He looked instead for grief, to finally truly mourn and put this all behind him. Again, he came up empty.

_There's nothing left._

He stood up, abandoning his partly eaten meal, his appetite gone. He walked outside, ignoring the car and trudging south towards the warehouse. The streets were tinted blue in the light of the waxing moon, patchworked with the yellow of the streetlamps. A stray tabby cat stared at him from beneath a car, its eyes shining in the darkness. Elliot passed it all unseeing, like a sleepwalker, like a tired ghost. He found himself at the warehouse fence again, walking along the edge until he reached a side street, away from the street lights or doorways.

There, he began to scale the fence, his shoes digging into the metal links, the wire cutting into his fingers. Near the top, the fence bent and creaked under his weight, and he lost his balance. His feet slipped noisily against the metal on the other side of the fence as he clung painfully to the wire with one hand. Then he let himself drop, hitting the ground hard enough that he was winded, the impact jolting deep through his bones.

For a moment, he sat panting on the concrete, listening for any signs of pursuit, alarm. There was nothing. Slowly, he got to his feet. His muscles ached a little, but the shock seemed to have jolted him out of his numbness. He walked towards the warehouse on full alert, his steps slow and wary.

The concrete yard was largely empty. Trucks lined up neatly against the wall, their cabins dark and cold. Civilians tended to believe that all crimes happened in the dead of night, but that was hardly the case. The smarter brand of criminal avoided it whenever possible, as unexplained nighttime activity only aroused suspicion where there was none before. So the yard was almost deserted. Except for one man unloading boxes from a truck, humming to himself in an off-key tenor. Behind him was an open loading bay, fluorescent lighting spilling out from the inside.

Elliot stared at the man, his mind racing. Then he stepped forward, relaxing his shoulders, slipping his hands in his pockets. After all, feigning confidence had worked before.

He strolled up to the man, who was now singing louder, bobbing his head up and down in an awkward dance.

Elliot almost smiled. "Hey," he said.

The man looked up at him with surprise. Elliot cold cocked him in the jaw. He dropped to the ground with a heavy thump and lay still, his eyelids fluttering.

Wincing, Elliot shook out his hand - bleeding again, he noted - before grabbing the man by his feet and dragging him into the truck's trailer. He closed the door firmly. With luck, he would be too disoriented to call for help for a while after he woke. Long enough for Elliot to find Cassidy, anyway.

The inside of the warehouse was only slightly brighter than the outside, lit sporadically by dim fluorescent lights, hung high from the ceiling. Boxes and crates lay scattered around the ground, and Elliot caught the occasional glimpse of a gun barrel, a brick of white. It was good to know that Lewis hadn't been lying about the warehouse's purpose. There was no sight of another person, no sound except the buzz of the lights and the hum of air conditioning. Cassidy was here though. He could feel it in his bones.

The first sprawling room was empty of human life, though it contained enough drugs to keep a small army from every having to face sobriety again. He passed into the next room, lined with tall metal shelves, obscuring his vision. He prowled between them, gun drawn, ears straining for any hint of a sound. And there - something - the scrape of a chair against the ground.

Holding his breath, Elliot peered around the next set of shelves. In the far corner of the room, Brian Cassidy sat slouched at a table. He didn't look up as Elliot approached, facing away, his eyes intent on a laptop.

Elliot raised his gun, a small, hard smile on his face.


	16. Horse, Hunter and Stag

A vague reference to the 10x12 episode "Hothouse" in this chapter. Also, with regards to the question about the previous chapter, the third wish is the one they'd never make.

* * *

16\. Horse, Hunter and Stag

Elliot didn't hesitate."Hey, Cassidy," he said, stepping forward. "Hands in the air."

The other man turned, and Elliot shivered a little despite himself.

While Lewis had clearly taken great pains to alter his appearance, Cassidy had not. Between the two, however, Cassidy had changed far more. He had lost weight, his cheeks hollow, his skin hanging loosely. His constant five o'clock shadow had become a short, ragged beard, and his hair had grayed, white creeping up from his temples. But what was most unsettling were his eyes. The hint of the lost unhappiness that Elliot had seen in the IAB squad room all those weeks ago had given way to a deadened look that sent a chill down his spine.

Cassidy made no move of aggression or surrender, gave no hint of fear or surprise.

"Hands up, Cassidy. I'm not going to ask you again."

"I'm unarmed," he said, not moving. "My gun is on the table."

Elliot chanced a glance to the side. A department issue 9mm sat holstered on the table, but that meant very little.

"Humor me. Do it anyway."

"Or what? Gonna shoot me, Stabler? Come all this way just to end things with a bullet to the head? Come on."

Elliot gave him a hard smile. "It's a funny thing. I just spent yesterday beating a man to death with my bare hands. You wouldn't believe how much it helped with my rage issues. I'd be okay with ending things with a bullet right now. It'd save some time and I've got a plane to catch. It's your choice."

Very slowly, Cassidy raised his hands.

Elliot nodded. "That's what I thought. Up against the wall."

Cassidy obeyed, but sighed in annoyance as Elliot patted him down. "This is a waste of time. I told you, you're not going to find anything."

"You'll have to excuse me if I don't really put a lot of stock in your honesty right now."

"What gave me away?" Cassidy asked, with a certain amount of professional interest.

"Heather Riggs. The girl who made the rape complaint against you. All it took was a little digging and she gave you right up."

Cassidy's smile was sad. "I should have known. It's funny. Out of all the things I've done, that was the one where I really didn't have a choice. LaRouche was already on the edge. If I'd refused, if I'd tried to trick him and got caught, it would have gotten us both a bullet to the head."

"There's always a choice."

"Yeah. There can be a choice. Between bad and worse. You don't know what it's like -"

Elliot slammed his hand against the wall, and Cassidy finally flinched, still facing away. "You think I never had to make hard choices? You think I never had to choose between the easy thing and the right thing?

Cassidy's smile was hard and cynical. "And I bet you always chose the right thing, huh? That's why you're here, all alone, two thousand miles from home with a gun in your hand."

Elliot shoved the gun harder against the base of his skull. "You're really going to compare your choices to mine?"

"All I'm saying is things can get complicated."

Exhaustion finally won out over rage, and Elliot took a step back, lowering his weapon a fraction of an inch. "So explain it to me then," he said, and even to himself, his voice sounded more bewildered than angry. "You were a good guy. How did it end up like this?"

Cassidy turned around but still didn't look at Elliot. He stared at the ground as he spoke, his eyes and voice dull, empty. "After I left SVU, I worked in Narcotics for a while. It was fine. But after a couple years, I wanted something else. I got along with everyone, didn't come off like a cop. My captain thought I'd do good undercover. I did a few practice runs - some little drug busts, fake hit man for hire. That sort of thing. Then they sent me under with some gang. Small fry. An easy bust for a new guy."

"But it didn't work out that way."

"No." Cassidy took a shaky breath. "They weren't so small after all. And they found me out. I still don't know how. Their leader - Mendez. He was a sociopath. Cruel, but not too smart. But they caught me. They kept me in the dark for three days. Broke every bone in my hand. Killed anyone who they thought might have given me information."

Cassidy gave him a twisted rictus of a smile. "They knew they couldn't kill me, you know? Killing a cop would bring the whole NYPD down on them. But they could kill the guys I liked, the ones who were still trying to be good people, just to make a point. They figured no one would notice a couple more dead punks. At the end, they threatened to kill one of the girls. Her name was Anna - she was someone's cousin who was always hanging around. Never saw her get involved with any of the bad business. And they were going to kill her. Unless I hid what I knew from the NYPD worked for them instead. And I couldn't let them hurt her. She... we..."

Elliot couldn't hold back a snort of contempt. "You slept with her. You know, I think half your problems would have been avoided if you could just keep it in your pants."

Cassidy glared back. "And you were so much better, weren't you Stabler? I saw how you used to look at Olivia. Your mom never taught you to walk away when you're attracted to a woman who's not your wife? And even if you don't, an affair isn't the end of the world. Neither is divorce. If you'd just gotten things out in the open, if you'd just made a choice, you could have saved everyone a lot of grief. But no, it was so damn important to you to be able to strut around and look down on everyone else."

Raising his gun again, Elliot narrowed his eyes. "Spare me the lecture and stick to the story. We don't have a lot of time left."

Cassidy took a breath. "What was I supposed to do? I couldn't go to cops. I didn't know if someone on the inside had given me up. But I wasn't going to let them win. I'd heard a couple people talk about a guy who'd been making some waves - Alik Petrenko. Eastern European, deep mob ties, really ambitious. And I thought of a plan. I tracked him down. Told him who I was. Told him what happened. Said if he helped me wipe these guys out, he'd have one less rival and a cop that owed him a favor. He agreed."

"Should have known it wouldn't be that simple."

"No. But it worked. It took them less than two weeks to get Mendez - drive by shooting. They got the other leaders in less than two months. The rest of the gang scattered. Anna was safe."

Elliot considered this, frowning uncertainly. "And so all of this - all you've done - all of it was to protect her?"

The pain in his face was inhuman. "No. I wish. I really, really wish. I found her afterwards, told her she was safe, told her what I had done for her. She spat at me. Said the whole thing had been a setup. She'd never been in danger. The whole thing had been her idea in the first place."

Elliot stared at Cassidy silently, the first threads of pity in his heart warring against cold rage.

Cassidy was still talking. "But Alik had a hold on me now. He could turn me in at any time. What I'd done was more than enough to send me to jail for life. And so he used me. Small stuff, mostly. Tipping him off about raids, looking up records sometimes. I picked most of my own undercover assignments and I'd pick his rivals. I'd get a bust and he'd get just a little more powerful."

Elliot shook his head, in incredulity or disgust, he wasn't sure. "And Lewis? How'd you get mixed up with a guy like him?"

Cassidy stared past him, his eyes dull. "I met him six years ago at a bar. Didn't know who he was. Seemed like a nice, normal guy. I was drunk and pissed off and shit talking, and he acted all sympathetic - interested - especially when I told her about Anna. And when he asked where she was, where she worked, I didn't even think twice. I thought he was just curious.

"After that, I went home, slept off the hangover. Didn't even think about it the next day. But I ran into him at the same bar the next week. He had a big box in his hands, wrapped up like a present. He asked me to go outside with him and gave it to me." Cassidy swallowed. "Her head was inside."

"And what, you let him walk away? You didn't think a guy like that was someone you might want to turn in?"

"I knew I should. I knew keeping quiet went against everything I thought I stood for. But I knew if I did, he'd take me down with him. Everything would come out. And - I couldn't help it. I still hated her. I was glad she was dead.

"But now Lewis had a hold on me too. He moved around a lot, only came by New York every once in a while, but when he did, he'd always look me up. He always knew how to find me, somehow. Most times he didn't want anything, just wanted to remind me he was still around. When I was working for LaRouche, he wanted a go with one of the girls. I said yes. Hoped it might make him think we were even." He smiled a little bitterly. "Guess that's what got me in the end. He left, and I didn't see him for another two years."

"And the next time he was after Olivia."

"No. The next time was at the park, at some art thing she dragged me to. I saw him in the crowd. He was watching her. And I wanted - I wanted to shoot him right there, but there were too many witnesses, and I couldn't follow him out because Olivia was with me. But he didn't call, he didn't find me in the streets or show up at my apartment, and I figured he'd just gotten bored and left. Olivia told me later about a case they had with a flasher who had beaten rape charges in a couple other states and I didn't put it together. Why would a guy that good at staying out of jail commit a crime in broad daylight in front of witnesses? Unless he wanted to be caught. Unless he wanted SVU to get involved.

"Then I got the call. He wanted an address. And a key. And he reminded me what would happen if I said no."

"And so you sold her out. You threw her to the wolves just to save your own worthless skin."

"I thought she'd kill him. I swear I did. She has better reflexes than anyone I've ever met, and she's had too many run-ins with perps to ever really let her guard down. She'd kill him and get another commendation, and I'd get rid of him without even dirtying my hands. But she didn't. Maybe she was tired that day, or maybe he was just faster. But when I called her and she didn't answer, I knew."

"You didn't think to tell anyone? You didn't try and help her?"

"Honestly? I thought she was dead. I never saw how he worked. I didn't know he liked to take his time, break them down. And when I didn't hear anything for another day, I talked to her squad, had them check on her."

"But you knew the second time. And you did it again."

"He called me out of the blue one day. Said he was going to escape from jail, wanted a ride, of all things. I was gonna pick him up and shoot him, dump the body somewhere. But my boss heard the call. Told me he had a different plan."

"Why? Why would he want to help a guy like Lewis?"

Cassidy's smile was bitter. "You don't remember him, do you?"

"Your boss? I've never met him."

"I guess after a couple thousand cases, they all start to run together. You start to forget people. But they remember you. Six years ago, you busted a guy bringing in girls from Ukraine, forcing them into prostitution. Olivia went undercover, pretending to be a buyer. You had him cold. Let him out on a deal, because he was too hard to prosecute, and he wasn't really the guy you were after. But if you'd dug a little deeper, you'd have seen he did a lot more than you thought. You guys were the closest anyone got to taking him down, and you didn't even know who he was. When she arrested him, he said he'd kill her, and I doubt she even noticed. She's too used to bad guys talking big. But he keeps his word. Always. When he heard about Lewis, he jumped at the chance.

"Besides, in the time the NYPD spent putting on a useless manhunt for a vicious cop killer, twenty-three murders and twelve huge drug deals went down, crimes that normally might have been pretty easy to solve, but they couldn't spare the manpower to follow the leads. In the weeks you've been looking for me and Lewis, Alik's cemented his power base in New York, taken out a couple rivals, greased a few more palms. Things he couldn't have done while the NYPD had the time to keep an eye on him."

Elliot stared at him, alternating waves of horror and fury coursing through him. "That's all she was to you?" he finally managed to say. "A diversion? Some pawn you sacrificed to help out your little gang?"

"No," Cassidy said hoarsely, his eyes like a wounded animal. "I loved her. I loved her even before you did. I loved her since those first couple weeks after she started at SVU, when she looked at you like you hung the goddamn moon and you looked at her like you thought she wouldn't last. I loved her. And when we got together again after all these years, I tried - I tried to get out - for her. I went to Alik and I told him I was done. So he had Brooklynn go to the cops saying I raped her, to remind me that no one walks out, that that was only the tip of the iceberg for what he could do to me."

Elliot lunged forward, pinning him to the wall by his throat, his gun shoved up into the soft flesh beneath his chin. "You don't get to talk about love," he snarled. "If you cared about her at all, you would have shot yourself before giving her up to Lewis."

Cassidy still didn't react. "You spend your life truly alone, waiting to see if the bullet that kills you is from your friends or your enemies, love stops mattering. There's only fear, survival. You do something bad, and then you do something worse to cover it up. And then you find each down step gets easier and easier, until one day you look back and wonder how you fell so far."

"I'd die first. I'd rot in solitary for the rest of my life before doing even half of what you did."

"It's easy to die a hero. It's easy to have those couple seconds or minutes of bravery, to slip away with an easy conscience. It's harder to die when you've spent your life doing the wrong thing. When you know that after you're gone, everything you've done will come out. Everyone who helped you, who ever said anything good about you, is going to be tarred with that same brush. After a while, you find you'll do more and more to keep that from happening."

Elliot bared his teeth in a snarl. "You're pathetic. She deserved better than you."

The other man nodded. "She deserved better than any of us. She deserved better from every goddamn person in her life who ever pretended to care about her. She deserved a mother who saw her as a person, not a crime. She deserved a man who could have loved her with his whole heart, instead of too many who had something else. She deserved to have Cragen or Munch tell her that whatever she was looking for, she wasn't going to find it by giving her whole life to the job. She deserved a million different things that she could never have. And maybe I was the worst, maybe I betrayed her the most, but we all helped her down this path."

Elliot's face twisted with disgust. He released Cassidy, backing up a step, then leveled the gun at him again. "On your knees," he said quietly. "You don't get to die on your feet like a man."

Cassidy stared at him for a moment, rubbing his neck. Then, slowly, he knelt onto the ground.

"I guess I've been waiting for this for a long time," he said tiredly, his eyes fixed on a point past Elliot's head. "It's a relief, in a way. I kind of wish I'd had the strength to do it myself, fifteen years ago."

There was a small metallic click somewhere from the around the doorway, and the back of Elliot's neck prickled in warning. He threw himself to the side purely on instinct as a bullet whizzed past his cheek, rippling the air near his face. He cursed, scrambling upright with a speed borne of fear, stumbling for meager cover behind a large packing crate as two more bullets chipped a tile near his feet.

He counted to three, breathing hard, his ears ringing, then chanced a quick look over the crate. Another two bullets whizzed by his head, but he'd seen the shooter now. The man stood openly near the center of the room, legs braced, both hands on the gun. The guy was a good shot, no question. But clearly no one had taught him the first thing about being in a firefight.

Elliot ducked around the crate again, this time to the side, clutching his own weapon. He dropped the gunman with three shots to the chest. He crumpled to the ground much like Jenna Fox, with the same look of pained surprise.

Everything seemed surreal through the ringing in his ears, but now wasn't the time to let his guard down. He scanned the area, looking for more threats. The room was empty. Cassidy was gone. So was his gun.

With a snarl of frustration, he walked over to the fallen man, kicking away the gun and picking up a half filled magazine of bullets. The man was in his final throes of death, a raspy hiss of air coming from his lungs, his hands clawing weakly at the ground, his eyes wide with terror.

Christ, he was practically a kid - 20 years old, tops. And while he'd certainly made mistakes in his life, he hadn't deserved to die like this, a pointless casualty in someone else's war. Elliot had left SVU because the burden of guilt had grown too heavy. How many more deaths would be on his head before this was all over?

A cold voice in the back of his mind answered.

_At least one_.

Elliot straightened, slipping the extra bullets into his pocket. Then he stepped forward, following Cassidy deeper into the warehouse.


	17. Memento Mori

17\. Memento Mori

Once Elliot made it back to the hallway, he spent a few precious moments thinking, trying to consider his next move. The place seemed deserted again, no sign of Cassidy or anyone else. The smart thing to do, after all, would be to abandon the warehouse and run. This wasn't the kind of neighborhood where gunshots would go unnoticed. Even if Elliot couldn't find Cassidy, the police would be here soon.

But hiding got to be a habit sometimes. Under pressure, it was easy to stick to what was familiar, even if it was the wrong move. Cassidy had spent the better part of a month in this warehouse. He'd still be here. Waiting.

The lights flickered as he walked down the hallway, like a cheap haunted house. The ringing in his ears had faded somewhat but was still loud enough to drown out most sounds. If someone came up on him from behind, he'd be dead before he knew it.

The next room was smaller but still empty. A stairway to the lower level lay just beyond it and he barreled down, gun held out front. The first man he came across was unarmed. He went pale when he saw Elliot, his jaw dropping comically before he bolted, stumbling as he ran. Elliot let him go. He couldn't waste bullets on anyone who wasn't shooting back. Still, he was almost caught off guard by the next man, who stepped out from behind a doorway with a rifle leveled at his chest. Elliot threw himself to the right as he heard the gunshot crack. He emptied his weapon into the man's torso before he could fire again, standing close enough that he felt the blood splash against his face. He wiped it off with his sleeve before reloading. He only had half a magazine left. It would have to be enough.

A little further on, he finally caught glimpse of Cassidy, disappearing into another doorway. Elliot sped up, rushing forward with the strength of a man who saw the end in sight.

The door led to another storage room, gray and sprawling. They were underground. No windows, no other doors leading in or out. Cassidy was trapped. Smiling, Elliot slid the heavy door shut behind him. This room was less empty than the others, crates and refuse scattered throughout the room. The lights buzzed dimly.

He searched through methodically, checking behind crates and old machinery, looking for footprints or smears in the grime and dust. He didn't hurry. Things would all end here. He knew that for sure.

"Just leave, Stabler." Cassidy's voice was distant, barely audible through the ringing in his ears, coming from everywhere and nowhere. "I don't want to have to kill you."

Elliot whirled around, checking behind him, to the sides. "That's not exactly what I'm worried about here."

"You think I can't? I spent weeks holed up in this shit hole. I know every crack, every layer of paint. I can see you, but I know you can't see me. I could kill you without even trying."

"Do it, then."

"I don't want to. Just leave, Elliot. We can both walk out."

Elliot almost laughed. "What, you killed Olivia and Munch without blinking, but you can't kill me? We weren't even friends."

"I never wanted to kill either of them." His voice was raw, shaking. "I never wanted to kill anyone. After that first gang, I only ever did it if it was them or me."

"It should have been you," Elliot snarled, sweeping the next corner. "It should have been you a hundred times by now."

"Not everyone wants to die for the cause." His voice was louder this time. "All I ever wanted was to survive. I was good at it. Gave up more than you can imagine to do it. I could kill you. It would be easy. Compared to all I've done, it would be nothing. But I don't want to. I know you've got a family. Don't make me do it, Stabler. Let me have this one goddamn thing."

Elliot turned and finally spotted him, concealed behind a pile of crates in the far corner of the room, nearly invisible in the shadows, his gun discernible in the darkness, tracking Elliot's movements across the room.

"I can't do that." Elliot gave no sign of what he'd seen, slowly working his way closer to the other man's location, his voice low and soothing. "You spent all those years running from what you did. But it didn't do you any good. You're out here, alone, two thousand miles from home. You can kill me and then what? Spend the rest of your life on the run, hiding from the people who used to be your friends? What kind of life is that? We all pay the price one day. For once in your life, stand up and face it head on."

There was no response this time. But Elliot could see the gun shifting and steadying, preparing to shoot. Immediately, he raised his own weapon, whirling around, and they both fired at the same time. Both of them missed, and he felt two bullets whiz past his neck and shoulder. He saw his own bullets slam into the crates, a shower of splinters flying into the air. The next shot grazed his side, and he dove for cover behind a worn-down forklift. Another bullet hit the side as he ran behind it, glancing off with a burst of sparks.

Panting, he peered around the forklift, gun at the ready. Cassidy was waiting, and they fired at each other again, the sound echoing off the walls in a piercing cacophony. So Elliot felt rather than heard his gun click, finally out of bullets. He hesitated a moment too long, and there was suddenly a sharp thudding pain across his forehead, his vision disappearing into redness.

He fell back with a scream, terror thudding in his throat, wondering if these were the final few moments before the realization of death reached the remnants of his brain. He reached up to his forehead before he could stop himself and felt warm liquid and a deep split in his skin, but no other damage. The bullet had grazed him, and the blood from the wound had momentarily blinded him.

An inch, he thought hysterically. A fraction of an inch further and he'd be dead. But there was no time to dwell on that. If Elliot was out of bullets, Cassidy probably was too. And even if he wasn't, Elliot was out of options now.

He got to his feet, wiping some blood from his face with his shirtsleeve. Then he charged Cassidy with a bellow of rage that was lost in a rush of adrenaline.

Cassidy was reloading, and he looked up as Elliot approached, his eyes widening in surprise. He pushed the magazine into the gun and started to raise it, but it was too late. Elliot flung himself the last several feet, and they both hit the ground hard, Elliot's hands locked around Cassidy's neck. His eyes bulged, his fingernails clawing at Elliot's arms, leaving long bloody lines that he couldn't feel. He was beyond pain now, beyond reason, beyond sense. Only rage was left, tinted red like the blood in his eyes.

After a few moments, Cassidy let his hands drop, one falling limply by his shoulder, the other going down to his hip, searching along the ground -

Elliot only realized the danger when he felt the hard press of metal against his stomach. He started to pull back, but Cassidy had pulled the trigger, one final shot echoing through the warehouse.

It was like an explosion tore through him, blasting him back like a giant hammer blow to his gut. Yet somehow he kept his grip, and with a last burst of strength he twisted with his arms in an almighty wrench. He could feel Cassidy's neck break beneath his hands, vertebrae cracking and scraping against each other with a harsh grate of bone. Cassidy gave one last twitch and lay still, his eyes finally truly empty.

Elliot stared down at him, gasping.

"Better than you deserved," he managed to say. "Better than..."

He ran out of breath and his legs didn't seem to want to respond, so he pushed himself away from the body with his arms, rolling onto his back with a harsh outrush of air. There was no pain. Only a spreading liquid warmth behind his back and numbness below his waist.

Olivia knelt over him, tears in her eyes. "He's dead," she said. "You got what you wanted. Was it worth it? Was it worth all this?"

"No. It wasn't. But it was never about that."

"What was it then?"

Elliot looked up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to catch his breath. It was slow in coming. "Cassidy was trapped by his lies... but in the end, so was I. But I only had one... and it was just in my own head... where I told myself... I could live my life without you." He laughed a little, which turned into a cough, and he felt warm salty liquid linger on his lips. "I spent fifteen years... trying to force myself not to ruin our lives over this. But in the end, I did anyway. Because maybe... maybe there are some things you can't change. I just wish..."

Her mouth twisted sadly. "I know."

They were silent for a while. Elliot shivered, a creeping sense of coldness settling in. It was getting harder to breathe, but he couldn't quite find the strength to mind.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, deliberate and unhurried. Olivia looked up and frowned.

"Think that's the police?"

"Doubt it. Too... too soon for them to be this far in."

"Suppose we'd better get out of here then."

He started to tell her that he couldn't stand, much less walk, but suddenly he found that he could, his limbs lighter than they had been in years. He took her proffered hand and she pulled him up. When he was on his feet, he didn't let go.

She smiled at him, her hair dark and her eyes bright. Side by side, they walked away into the early dawn as police sirens sang in the distance.


	18. All the Lost Souls

Look away, Amelia. Nothing good can come of this epilogue.

(But honestly, I did say no light at the end of the tunnel, so if you thought the previous chapter was insufficiently nihilistic, by all means keep reading. If not, you can stop right here - you won't miss anything.)

* * *

18\. Epilogue - All the Lost Souls

For most of his life, Donald Cragen's father had managed a production line in upstate New York, and had taught him from an early age to never leave a job until it was done. But after decades as a police officer Cragen had found that the job was never done, never even close. Still, he thought his father would have been disappointed nonetheless at the way he'd finally left his post, walking away with the biggest case in his career still unsolved.

And it shouldn't have mattered that he had been heartsick and tired, that guilt and regret had tugged at him with eager grasping hands, that he had walked into the squad room every day with a tightness in his chest - it was a man's duty to bear his grief and soldier on. Old fashioned nonsense, perhaps. Olivia might have scowled to hear it. But you couldn't help the way you were raised.

Things had ended without his help in any case. He'd awoken one day to the news of a shootout in California, and the bodies of not one but two of his former detectives had been pulled from the scene. Details of what exactly had happened in that vast sprawling warehouse were still forthcoming, but Cragen suspected that too many secrets had died with the two men for anyone to ever get a clear picture.

While the search for Lewis was still technically ongoing, behind the scenes it had quietly shifted from a manhunt to a recovery mission. The bloodstains in the trunk of the car found at the scene made it fairly clear how William Lewis had met his end, but case couldn't be officially closed until they found the body. And maybe they never would. There were miles of empty desert between Nevada and California, a million different places where human feet rarely trod. It could be years before anyone stumbled across his desiccated skeleton, his grin bleached even whiter by the sun and sand. There would still be no real closure. Not for anyone.

Officially, Elliot was no longer a cop, and was a murderer besides, but most of the NYPD not on duty had shown up to the funeral anyway, in dark suits instead of uniforms, the blue line unbroken. The whole Stabler clan sat prominently in the front row, the grief on their faces tempered with other emotions. For the oldest son, anger. For the middle daughter, understanding. For Elliot Jr., only six, confusion. He was too young to truly comprehend what had happened. He would grow up without really knowing his father. His memories of him would eventually be whittled down to stories repeated endlessly by his family, to a few fleeting recollections of warm hands, a strong voice.

_How could you do this, Elliot? How could you leave them this way?_

But then he remembered how Elliot and Olivia used to smile at each other with their heads bent over their paperwork, side by side but never quite touching. He could condemn Elliot, perhaps. But he couldn't be surprised.

Cragen found his eyes drawn most to Elliot's wife, her eyes dry but bearing the look of bewildered grief that he'd worn himself nearly 20 years ago, after the plane crash that killed his own wife. He'd wanted to comfort her then, take her by the shoulders and tell her things would look brighter eventually. But all he could think as he watched her was that he'd always suspected that if Olivia went, Elliot wouldn't be far behind, yet he'd done nothing about it. He'd walked away instead, afraid that she'd see the truth in his eyes.

God, he needed a drink.

But no, retirement was no excuse to drink himself to death. Eileen was out shopping with her daughter, she wouldn't be back until evening. He'd take the afternoon and go visit Kathy Stabler, offer what help or advice that he could. Do his duty one final time.

He stood up decisively, heading towards the door. And if his chest gave an odd, painful twinge as he reached for the doorknob, he thought nothing of it.

* * *

As the end of a massive police manhunt in New York and a shootout in California dominated the news cycle, the disappearance of a young tourist couple in the badlands of Nevada went almost unnoticed.

To the few journalists who were interested, the head of the local search and rescue explained that the Bennetts were inexperienced hikers but well equipped, and they fully expected a good outcome. But as the days stretched into weeks with no sign of the two, the search was called off. A few local television stations did segments on desert survival and the importance of vehicle maintenance, and then the story was almost forgotten.

But not quite.

Six weeks after the Bennetts were first reported missing, a young highway patrol officer who had been involved with the search spotted a gray jeep with Ohio plates heading east down the interstate. He frowned, a wisp of intuition rising up through his thoughts. He reached for his gear stick, preparing to pull out, follow it for a better look. Then he hesitated, letting his hand drop, leaning back against the seat. After all, there were probably a thousand gray jeeps from Ohio. The idea that this one might belong to the missing couple was just absurd. Wasn't it?

A few moments later, a car sped by him going 25 miles over the limit and he pulled out to give chase, the hunch disappearing from his mind entirely.

The driver of the gray jeep watched the cop car go by with mild interest but not much concern, glancing at his own speedometer only briefly. He was a tall man, his dark hair short but inexpertly cropped. His face was badly scarred, his skin deeply tanned by the harsh desert sun. When combined with the beginnings of a beard, it gave his face a somewhat rugged look that made the female cashier at the last gas station shoot him a speculative glance.

He hadn't gotten the chance to listen to much news in the past few weeks. Even so, if someone had asked, he could have told them that Mrs. Bennett had been a nurse by trade, and a very good one at that. He could have also told them that both Bennetts had been extremely well-prepared for their trip, and that their fatal flaw had not been inexperience but rather their faith in their fellow man. But of course, no one asked him.

He put the thought out of his mind and reached for the gear shift, his movements still a little pained and stiff. But better than yesterday. Much better, actually. He thought he might head north, get a change of scenery. Or - no. The days were getting cold. South might be better. Either way, there was no hurry. There were a thousand rest stops and small towns along the endless highway. Plenty of places where people minded their own business, who didn't look too hard at strangers. He'd follow the road and see where it led.

The man turned on the radio to an oldies channel, letting it murmur through his speakers as he rolled down the road. And when his favorite song came on, he sang along, grinning his bright, deadly grin.

_End._

* * *

Before you yell at me, I just thought it'd be unfair - thematically - to let Elliot win against Lewis. Both in the show and in this story, Lewis got away with things because cops broke the rules, and Elliot didn't do much better on that front. But one out of two isn't bad, right?

Anyway, thanks for reading, and you know, sorry. Just had to get it out of my head. Go read something happy now.


End file.
